


The Smallest of Deeds

by bmot



Series: Dragon Age AU [3]
Category: SHINee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-20 08:25:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 61,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9482735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmot/pseuds/bmot
Summary: Jinki's clan is gone.Killed by humans, with no trace of a motive, on a night he spent away at Jonghyun's cabin. To save Jinki from his loneliness -- and his desire for revenge -- Jonghyun suggests they journey south to find Taemin.Their search for a place and purpose sends them to an organization known as the Inquisition, and the dangers they face after joining force Jonghyun and Jinki to confront parts of themselves and their relationship that threaten to break them apart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, as promised! As with the last part of DA au, this work is (near) complete, so I will be posting the updates every other day. Thanks as always to my lovely betas, @jongyued, @yurilikesgirls, and @fleckle. I couldn't have done it without y'all!
> 
> This is my first time writing (what I would say) a traditional fantasy-type story with fighting and traveling, so I hope it's enjoyable.
> 
> I highly recommend reading As the Sapling Bends and the DA AU drabbles first, especially if you are unfamiliar with the dragon age series, as I introduced a few concepts in the first part. Feel free to message me with any questions/comments you have along the way! I will keep anon commenting enabled on every story there. [I also have some doodles for the fic](http://loopshare.com/tagged/da-au/) (mostly of jinki cause he’s gorgeous).
> 
> For the fellow da nerds: as with the last fic, this should all be reasonably canon-compliant. It begins after the Inquisition has moved to Skyhold and stretches through the mission in the Arbor Wilds up to the end of the game (though onjongtae are elsewhere for those events). There will be no appearances or interactions the Inquisition cast to keep naming consistent/avoid confusion, but I do have headcanons about some interactions that I’ll share if anyone is interested, lol.
> 
> Since this fic revolves around the Inquisition more than Jinki's clan/Dalishness, the title is taken from an unknown Canticle of the Chant of Light:
> 
> Though the lands suffer a thousand wrongs,  
> The Maker yet notices the smallest of deeds.
> 
> Since I tried to position all the characters in this story as background characters -- they don't exactly hold the fate of the world in their hands, or know much about what is going on at the highest point of the Inquisition organization, but the events still affect them, and their work fits into the larger goals of the Inquisition.

A storm has battled Ostwick for two days now. Jinki and Jonghyun arrived at the port city on the edge of the Waking Sea just in time to find shelter at a shabby inn. With no ships yet leaving, and the whispers about the _obvious apostate_ and the _savage knife-ear_ biting at them each time they attempt to take their meals in the inn’s tavern, they’ve been trapped inside the small bedroom.

The rain beats loudly against the window with each thrust of wind, and the noise is loud enough to drown out Jonghyun’s surprised gasp when a hot mouth covers his neck. He doesn’t question it at first — because it’s _Jinki,_ and he’ll take anything the man will give him — until he’s pulled forward and over the older elf to sit between his legs.

“Fuck me,” Jinki breathes.

Jonghyun’s heart pounds in his chest.

This isn’t right.

Jinki’s eyes are too desperate, and Jonghyun knows from their months together that this isn’t something Jinki would ask for out of true want.

He steels himself and looks into Jinki’s eyes. “No.”

Jinki flips them over. His next words are nearly a growl. “Then let me fuck you.”

Jonghyun’s pulse races. That idea’s familiar — that’s something they’d done many times before Jinki’s clan was slaughtered, and once after, when Jonghyun had been too relieved to see any sign of life in Jinki to worry he might be taking advantage.

He doesn’t think he did. Jinki had slept then — a truly restful sleep — for the first night in a week.

Jonghyun searches Jinki’s face. He sees the bags under his eyes, the new hollowness in his cheeks, and the tight line of his lips. Jonghyun nods.

His hands are pushed over his head, and Jinki’s legs slip between his. Before, it had been tentative instinct Jinki worked on, where this is entirely feral. His legs are sore from their travel, but he welcomes it when Jinki lifts and spreads them, relaxing himself for the push of a finger against him. A second joins it, then a third, and Jonghyun has to grip at the rough sheets as his body is overwhelmed at being given so much so suddenly.

Even in his rush, Jinki always drags this part on out of fear of causing hurt without it. Jonghyun urges him on by reaching for the oil brought with them and pressing it against the side of Jinki’s hand. The sound of Jinki coating himself in it is quick and wet, and though Jonghyun knows this is more about need and distraction than pleasure, it still brings a warm flush to his cheeks.

The push in is fast, and Jonghyun can only hold on, clutching tighter at Jinki’s shoulders with each thrust until Jinki’s hips go rigid against him. The warm weight of Jinki’s body over his is enough for Jonghyun to finish first, and his release paints the sweat trapped between their stomachs when Jinki pulls back.

The nuzzle at his neck nears an apology and Jonghyun hums at it, letting his fingers smooth through Jinki’s hair until his breathing finally steadies with sleep.

Jonghyun sighs. The dark clouds of the storm have dimmed the sun, but he can still see the tension that has set itself so permanently into Jinki’s brow it remains even in his sleep.

The last time he saw peace in it was weeks ago, after one of the rare times Jinki chose to share his bed for the night. They’d even parted with a long kiss, and Jonghyun had smiled as he left, heart fluttering with the knowledge that Jinki would likely be back in a few days’ time with yet another carved trinket he pretended wasn’t a gift.

Then Jinki had returned only hours later, covered in blood, his hands dirty and full of Dalish-made items.

 _They’re gone,_ _Jonghyun. All of them._

Jinki hadn’t cried. Only a brief, heart-rending stutter gave away his pain when he repeated to Jonghyun that his clan — his entire clan, because he had _counted_ , and _searched_ — was dead. That had been the start of the numbness.

The rage came next.

Jonghyun hadn’t known how to handle it. He’d been dealing with his own demons — the real and twisted spirits that visited every mage in their sleep when their dreams carried them to the Fade. For the first time in years, they tempted him with offers of _power_ — power large enough to hunt and kill whatever human bastards had killed Jinki’s clan, if only he would let them in.

It took more than all his willpower to turn them down. And he’d had to draw on it again, when the glint of Jinki sharpening his knife in the dead of night had woken him from the Fade.

And he had to argue against revenge, as much as he thought it right. The number of humans it must have taken to wipe out the clan would be too many for Jinki to kill on his own. Jinki hadn’t cared, at first. Even the death of one _shem_ could make the rest fear for their lives, and the clan deserved its justice, he’d said. He only stood down when Jonghyun reminded him that his death would mean the complete erasure of clan Lavellan, which was likely what the humans wanted. Even then, Jinki’s agreement was more a defeat than a resolution to move forward.

The days after that had become a blur.

With no chance of obtaining retribution, Jinki went quiet. Jonghyun knew better than to press him, so he had tried to resume his normal routine in hopes that would give Jinki some comfort. It took him days to drag him out of bed and into the garden, and even then, he could hardly call it _normal_ — there were none of Jinki’s teasings, or the skittish smiles he’d give before stealing a kiss. Only Jinki following him like ghost, the markings of his _vallaslin_ through cutting the growing gauntness of his cheeks.

Out of desperation, he’d suggested heading south, to Ferelden, to see if Taemin was still there.

Jinki had latched onto it like a lifeline.

They’d left the next day, walking from sunrise to sunset, and Jonghyun couldn’t even bring himself to complain about the grueling pace Jinki set. Traveling, at least, seemed to soften the wounded edge of Jinki’s silence.

That Jonghyun had come with him didn’t seem to sink in until they were booking their first room at an inn days later. He remembers the way Jinki had looked at him then, wide-eyed and vulnerable as he sat on the dingy mattress.

_Are you...going all the way to Ferelden with me?_

_Of course. I want to stay by your side._

The words had slipped out without a thought, but he didn’t regret them. He could have deflected with a dozen excuses for coming along: that he was tired of the cabin, that he was curious about the new organization in Ferelden that had brought an end to the war by allying with the mages, that he wanted to see Taemin himself — but he wanted Jinki to know how he felt. He deserved to know that he had someone, even if that someone was a _shem_ and a mage.

It seemed to help, if anything could be said to. That had been the night Jinki had taken him last, a flicker of heat behind the pain in his eyes, and when he’d begun to curl against Jonghyun for warmth when he slept.

With a sigh, Jonghyun fixes the thready blanket tighter around them both to block out the world and bring Jinki closer. If the storm ends, he needs to be up early to find a ship that will take them both and make preparation. They both need all the rest they can take.

 

***

 

Sleep leaves him slowly, and the waking hole in Jinki’s chest makes him reluctant to leave its embrace. The mattress is still warm in the empty space next to him, and he shifts into it without opening his eyes. For a long moment, he thinks himself in Jonghyun’s cabin, safe in his bed, until a sharp breeze from the window carries the unfamiliar scent of saltwater into the room.

He grimaces. A wave of nausea rumbles in his empty stomach, reminding him of his location and everything that led him here. He’s in some _shem_ city on the coast, waiting for the storm to clear so they can follow Taemin’s trail south.

What he’ll do when he sees him, he hasn’t the slightest clue — but that isn’t important now. All he needs to think about is getting there.

He stretches out his legs, realizing only after he pulls away the blanket and rises that Jonghyun is still in the room.

“Morning, Jinki.” Jonghyun tries at a smile from the small seat by the window. He picks up the basket on the table at his side. “I went ahead and bought pastries for breakfast so we could get an early start.”

A sweet and buttery smell wafts from the covered basket, drawing a growl from his stomach as Jonghyun brings it close. The collar of Jonghyun’s robes hangs low when he bends to set the food on the bed, and Jinki freezes at the sight.

One side of his neck is mottled with purple spots, dark enough for Jinki to wonder how he didn't realize he’d been making them the night before.

“You should eat something,” Jonghyun says, interrupting his staring. He unwraps the white cloth surrounding the pastries and takes a simple piece of bread for himself. “You don’t know if you’ll suffer from seasickness, and it’ll be hard to keep anything down then.”

“I don’t feel hungry,” Jinki says. Because despite all the weakness of his body and the emptiness of his stomach, it’s true. He hasn’t wanted to eat for days now. When he looks at food, all he can think of is the winter’s worth of stores from the aravels, scattered and wasted across the ground next to Joonmyeon’s body.

Jonghyun pushes a roll beneath his nose. “Please.” Then, more gently, “It has a berry filling.”

One glance at the desperate look in Jonghyun’s eyes makes him feel guilty enough to snatch the roll. He forces himself to take a bite, chewing slowly as he works through every foreign motion of his jaw. The sweetness of the berries feels dull on his tongue, and he only finishes because Jonghyun continues to watch him in worry.

Once he’s finished, Jonghyun smiles and hands him another roll. “You’re welcome to the rest of these. I’m going to prepare our things. I already found a ship that’ll take us this morning. 

Jonghyun bustles about the room, thoughts about their plans spilling forth unfiltered as he gathers his belongings. “We’ll sail across to Jader, and from there, it’s only a few days of walking south to Haven. That’s the town Taemin said he was leaving for, and we can ask someone there where he might be now. We both know he sticks out, and he can’t resist chatting up strangers. Any locals are likely to remember him, so his trail should be easy to follow.” He stops to look at Jinki. “Does that sound like a good plan?”

“Sounds fine,” Jinki agrees. He swallows the last crust of his roll, dry throat protesting around the small piece. He didn’t mind letting Jonghyun take the lead on their travels. It's made things easier, since most of the people they had to negotiate with were humans. Only one inn had refused them a room since one of them was an elf, but the rejection had been vehement enough he’d avoided talking with _shems_ since.

Life in the forest with the Dalish had nearly made him forget that most of the world wants elves dead, enslaved, or carving out a servile existence in the slums. The memory of the inn-keeper’s scowl grates him, and he can’t help the twist of his lips when he looks up at Jonghyun. “Do the people you booked passage with know that I’m an elf?”

Jonghyun’s lips tighten. Though Jinki would never ask, he has a feeling the only thing that kept him from chewing the ear off that inn-keeper and burning the place down had been his consideration for Jinki’s wariness of magic.

“Yes, they know you’re an elf.” He closes his pack. “And I made sure they wouldn’t take issue with it.”

Jinki nods, trusting Jonghyun’s assessment, and stands to pack his few things.

He hadn’t been able to bring much from the remnants of his clan’s camp. The killers had looted the valuables and left little else. He has his bow, extra strings, his ironbark armor, one of Joonmyeon’s potion flasks, and Hyoyeon’s sword. The rest of the items important enough to qualify as mementos but worthless to the _shems_ , he had hidden in a small cave that he knew would serve as a nest to snakes later in the season to keep animals from stealing. Hopefully, he can return to them someday.

Grabbing his long belt, he straps Hyoyeon’s sword to his side, letting it hang over the daggers attached to his thigh. Hyoyeon had served as a teacher to him in his first years of freedom, and he feels less trapped by the presence of _shems_ around him with the sword at his side.

It will likely cause him more trouble than it would prevent — he’s heard that elves in Ferelden cities are forbidden by law to carry weapons, and the sword is as long as his arm — but he refuses to try and blend in.

Not that he could, even if he wished to — the markings of their goddess Andruil are plain on his cheeks and forehead, and he knows he’ll stick out amongst the bare-faced elves in the cities.

“Ready to leave?” Jonghyun shoots him an encouraging smile from the door, pack and poorly-disguised staff already fixed to his back.

Jinki nods and joins Jonghyun, not bothering to spare a look for the room behind him. They descend the stairs in silence, and Jonghyun tosses an undeservedly cheerful farewell over his shoulder to the innkeeper before leading them outside to the streets of Ostwick.

The coastal city was built scaffolded to aid its defense from pirates, with high walls to separate each level. The poorer districts were built along the coasts, where they would be easy targets for fireballs from any attacking mages, while the nobles’ mansions perched arrogantly over the top with large glass windows to overlook the city below.

The inn they stayed in is shabby enough that only the elven slums stand between them and the docks, and the overwhelming stench of fish and saltwater, made heavier by the recent storms, hangs over the poorly cobbled streets.  As they head towards the gate to the slums, the scent intensifies, and Jinki’s nose crinkles in distaste.

When he sees the poorly-patched houses of rotting wood and stone, he pushes back the hood of his cloak slightly, unable to restrain his curiosity. He’d experienced slavery and the free life of the Dalish, but never seen the more common city life of his kind.

Now, he’s grateful that he hadn’t.

As he’d expected from Taemin’s description, the adults look ill-fed, and the children only slightly better off. The shadowed alleys are dark enough to hide any less than legal professions from the city guard, and Jinki keeps an eye on them for movement, unsure how the inhabitants will react to a human and a Dalish man walking through their territory.

He’d expected glares towards Jonghyun — even his friendly Dalish clan kept an archer hidden in the bushes when humans came close for trade — but every elf they pass lowers their head when Jonghyun nears. Jinki catches a few lingering looks at his own markings, but even the most curious of them skitters away when they spot the staff on Jonghyun’s back.

Jinki grits his teeth and widens his steps until he’s ahead of Jonghyun. He can’t blame them for fearing a mage, but the deference Jonghyun is receiving makes him worry he’ll be mistaken for a servant or worse.

“I wonder if all ports smell this awful,” Jonghyun says when they reach the gates to the docks. His normal inviting smile is replaced with a persistent curl of his lips, and Jinki mirrors it, discomforted by the bustle of the city morning around him. Though Ostwick is nothing like the one he’d called home in Tevinter, the abundance of trade stalls and shouting _shems_ along the docks reminds him too much of Perivantium.

“Where’s the ship we’ll be taking?”

“We’re taking the little boat with the blue sail. They’re Orlesian spice traders, but they allow the occasional passenger.”

Jinki follows Jonghyun’s pointer finger to the boat. The small ship is dwarfed in size by the massive trade and navy vessels, and is marked by the lion crest that Jinki assumes to be the flag of the Orlesian empress. Heavy-booted men and women trod expertly over the wood platforms leading to the ship, barrels and crates and bags hoisted over their shoulders as they load the vessel.

He keeps his eyes on his feet as they walk to the ship. The occasional whisper about his markings makes his ears twitch, and he has to fight the urge to reach for Jonghyun’s hand when he nearly falls after a _shem_ bumps him roughly with the rolled up carpet he was carrying to a stall.  

Finally, they stop in front of a broad-shouldered sailor.

“Is it too early for us to board?” Jonghyun asks. “We assumed you’d want us on as quickly as possible.”

“Not too early,” she says. Her eyes travel to Jinki. “This is the elf you said was your companion?”

Jonghyun stiffens. “Yes.”

“Those markings...they’re Dalish, no?” The sailor’s lip curls, eyes flicking from Jinki’s ears to his markings as if she can’t decide which offends her more. “You didn’t mention he was _that_ kind of rabbit.”

Jonghyun’s gaze hardens. “He’s not a _rabbit_. And him being Dalish is irrelevant. I paid enough coin for the passage of two people. Tattoos don’t change that.”

She narrows his eyes at him, but Jonghyun only lifts his chin in response. The pause carries on long enough that Jinki thinks they’re going to be denied passage, but she surrenders under Jonghyun’s stare with a raise of her hands and a sigh. “Fine. You have a temper to make up for your stature, I see. Go ahead and board. Don’t cause any trouble.”

“Thank you,” Jonghyun says, the bow of his head too courteous for the curtness of his words. He adjusts his pack and makes sure Jinki is with him before stepping on the gangplank.

The black waters beneath him make his stomach clench, and it takes all his willpower to force himself up the rocking plank and onto the ship. Jonghyun seems as disconcerted as him, walking along with his arms almost fully extended to try and maintain his balance. He closes his eyes and sighs in relief when they board, then forces a laugh that’s clearly for Jinki’s sake.

“That was a new experience, wasn’t it? I’ve never been on a ship before — didn’t realize getting on one felt so perilous.”

“Me neither,” Jinki says, disarmed from silence by his nerves. His hands drift to the hilt of Hyoyeon’s sword for comfort as he watches the last of the cargo and sailors board.

There’s not a single pair of pointed ears except his own on the ship. The crew and passengers are entirely _shem_ , and he’ll be stuck with them for the next week with no land to escape to.

The gangplank rises, and dread clenches his heart in his chest. His life is in their hands.  There’s little he could do if they suddenly decided the ship would be better off without the lone elf, or if some of them had a penchant for elven features as he’d heard was common in Orlais—

Jonghyun places a gentle hand on his wrist. “Are you alright, Jinki?”

“Fine,” Jinki cuts. He jerks his arm away. There’s a small section of the deck not occupied by ropes or sailors, and he moves there to pace, ignoring the worry in Jonghyun’s eyes and the shrinking coast behind them. If the city had felt confining, this might drive him mad.

A shouted stream of Orlesian from nearby makes him flinch.

“We can try to find our cabin,” Jonghyun says. He points to a door on the end of the main deck. “It might be quiet down there.”

Jinki nods. He follows Jonghyun, dodging sailors and ropes until they’re through the door and descending into the depths of the ship. Thin strips of sunlight from the deck above and lanterns are their only light, and it takes them some time to find a door with a poorly-done carving of _guest quarters_ in the wood.

The two beds inside are small, but nearly fill the cramped room. Jinki tosses his things under the left one and lays himself on it.

A wave rocks the ship, and Jonghyun stumbles to him. His eyes are squeezed shut, fist on the bedframe to balance himself, but his hand is gentle when reaches to brush back Jinki’s hair. “You can rest, if you want. I’ll be awake if you need anything.”

Jinki takes Jonghyun’s hand. He pauses, breathing slow for a moment, then twines their fingers together.

He's never been this far south. Never been this surrounded by humans. Even as a slave, there had always been the barracks, packed at all times of day with elves sleeping or sneaking off from work.

Being here feels like moving backwards, like he’s running again — because he _is_ — but it’s all he can do. There’s no clan for him to go back to. Jonghyun’s cabin is too entwined with the memories of that life and the night he’d had to wash the blood of his friends from his clothes.

He curls his body tighter, until his knees are pressed against Jonghyun’s back, and waits for the images to fade.

 

***

 

Jinki wakes when something knocks into the wall near his head. He pushes the blanket that was covering his eyes down, expecting to see Jonghyun fumbling with his belongings, only to find him laying on the other bed with his eyes closed.

His ears twitch at the sound of something rolling away from him and knocking into the wall nearest Jonghyun when the ship leans right. As it rolls back, the rolling repeats, and Jinki reaches down to try and catch whatever was causing the cursed noise.

The instant his fingers close around the object, he recognizes it — he’d carved it, after all.

The miniature crystal grace fits easily in his palm. He stares at the wooden flower, puzzled. It’s a useless trinket. Yet Jonghyun had thought it important enough to bring with him.

Jinki shakes his head and rewraps it in the fabric sack it’d escaped from, then tucks it into a deeper pocket in Jonghyun’s bag quietly and tries to return to sleep before his thoughts can sneak up on him.

He has little luck. Every quiet breath from Jonghyun itches his nerves, and watching him sleep soundly fills him with a mix of guilt and envy. Even resting flat on his back provides him no comfort.

The roof of the cabin is closer than it’d been in Jonghyun’s home, but not as within reach as it had been in the aravels. Just low enough for him to feel trapped, and high enough for him to feel exposed. Restless, he rolls out of bed, bare feet falling quiet to the wooden planks underneath him.

His stomach instantly clenches with hunger, but he ignores it, not wanting to risk exploring the hallways of the ship's cabin to find the kitchen. Instead, he follows the path he remembers from their journey down to the guest room, following the peaks of moonlight and dim lamps until he finds the stairs that leads out of the hull.

He opens the door and steps out onto the damp wood. The bustle of the day is gone, and only the sound of the lapping waves meets his ears. Jinki walks to the rail at the edge of the deck. The dark waves froth into a spray against the sides of the ship that flies up to his toes. Jinki watches it with interest, marveling at the way the dark water breaks into a white foam against the wood.

The experience is so new, it cuts through the haze he’s been in since he left the cabin with Jonghyun. His fear is even gone, for a moment, though he knows there’s a sailor on the higher deck behind him and another on the crow’s nest.

He can’t imagine a world with a night like this is the same as the one he’s been living in.

His ears twitch when he hears the creak of a door and the footfalls of boots, and he turns to see Jonghyun exiting the cabin with a long yawn.

Jonghyun stops beside him, assessing the silence between them before he tries to smile. “You’re faring well, I take it? You don’t seem to be bothered by the waves at all.”

“No.” Jinki rebalances his feet to better cope with the rocking of the boat beneath them. “I suppose I’m lucky.”

“I’m glad for that,” Jonghyun says, tone entirely genuine even as his smile strains. His hand rests over his stomach, and his back is bent with a strained hunch.

Jinki steps back, eyeing Jonghyun with caution. “You don’t look like you’re going to keep down your supper.”

“I didn’t.” Another wave crashes against the stern, and Jonghyun reaches desperately for the rail and pales. “Damn the Maker for creating large bodies of water.”

Jinki raises an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t believe in the Maker?”

“Of course I don’t.” Jonghyun grimaces. “But handling hardship is easier with someone to blame, isn’t it?”

Jinki’s lips quirk up as he remembers the last time he’d heard Jonghyun invoke the Maker. It hadn’t been hardship, though Jinki was _to blame_ for it, in a sense — it’d been his fingers in Jonghyun, after all, that’d made him breathless and desperate enough to cry out for a deity he didn’t even worship.

He opens his mouth, ready to tease Jonghyun in his usual round-about way, when his throat suddenly tightens as the rest of the memory falls into place.

That might’ve been the night his clan was slaughtered, by a group that left no trace of their motive or allegiance.

His smile fades, stomach churning with guilt as his emotions reel back to him. While he spent the night in the bed of a _shem_ , his clan had been fighting for their lives. And he still took comfort in that _shem_ , kissed him and bedded him like he might die without it.

None of it made sense.

Joonmyeon should have lived. Hyoyeon should have lived. Jungah and her _children_ should have lived.

Before he realizes it, his eyes are stinging, and Jonghyun’s hand is a careful weight on his arm.

“Jinki — I’m sorry.” He sighs. “I shouldn’t have phrased that the way I did, when you don’t know who—”

“No,” Jinki cuts him off. “You’re right. It would be easier, if I had someone to blame.”

“I know.” Jonghyun’s fingers tighten on him. “I wish we did, too. But if you had been there to see it, you wouldn’t have—” he chokes around the words, and his grip suddenly feels more desperate than assuring. “There wouldn’t be anyone to remember them.”

“Taemin would. They saved him, when we first escaped.”

“That’s true.” Jonghyun runs his hand down his arm slowly, until it rests on his elbow. “But it’s not the same as how you do. I’m not sure he’d paint the picture of them they deserve, considering he’s such a staunch Andrastian himself.”

Jinki looks at the ocean ahead to avoid Jonghyun’s eyes. “You think?”

“I don’t think he gave your clan or the life they lived the respect they deserved, no. Their refusal to live by humans laws and be locked in one part of the city should be admired. No one deserves to be controlled or ruled over just for how they were born.” Jonghyun smiles bitterly. “I like to think I can understand that, considering I’ve ran away from the Circle all these years to avoid being caged for my magic.”

Jinki hums. He has no words, but he finds himself leaning into Jonghyun with a small smile on his lips. Jonghyun had said something similar before, their first night alone, when Jinki had drunkenly asked him why he treated elves as equals. It’d been what drew him to Jonghyun, despite his magic and his humanness.

Though his clan is gone, he isn’t alone.

 

***

 

Jonghyun watches the approaching docks of Jader with a smile. He’ll be glad to back on land, and so will his stomach. He pays attention to Jinki and lingers as much as he can without earning a raised brow — the bags under Jinki’s eyes have gotten lighter, and his cheeks have already begun to round back out to their usual fullness.

He doesn’t understand it, but the sea seemed to bring Jinki some comfort. Though he’d avoided being around the humans on deck, he’d slept soundly during the day and come up for the last meal of the day. He’d even managed to have a full conversation with him, guessing what Taemin might have been up to in Ferelden. The adventures they could imagine him getting up to in the infamously laissez-faire country even made Jinki laugh.

Things are turning around.  They’ll restock their supplies, rest for a day, have a solid meal that Jonghyun could finally keep down, then continue south to Haven.

But the news they get at the inn cuts through their plans.

“You’re headed to Haven? The Ferelden town the Inquisition used as their base?” The innkeeper frowns in pity and shakes his head. “That place was destroyed months ago.”

Jinki pushes past him to the counter. “Destroyed? What do you mean?”

“Yep. Whole town’s gone. Attacked by some crazed templars after the Inquisition ended the war by allying with the mages.”

Jinki pales. Jonghyun can see the thoughts running through his head — _Taemin might be gone, he might have lost everyone_ — and jumps in.

“The Inquisition isn’t gone, though, is it? There had to have been survivors — I swear I’ve seen some of their scouts in the city. They’re the ones with the eye and sword symbol, aren’t they?”

“Aye, they’re rebuilding from the attack. I’ve heard they found some kind of ancient fortress in the Frostback Mountains and set up there. Hear they’re calling it Skyhold, since it’s so high up. Truly blessed by the Maker, to have found it.”

Jonghyun sighs with relief. “Do you know how we’d get there?”

“Same way as to their old base in Haven — either take the West route along the border of Orlais, or head east through Gherlen's Pass.”

“Thank you,” Jonghyun says. “The information is appreciated.” He places an extra few silver on the counter on top of the payment he’d already set out.

Jinki stares ahead, eyes unfocused. “If Taemin was there when it happened, then...”

“There were survivors.” Jonghyun squeezes Jinki’s arm to assure him. “And Taemin never stays in one place for long, you know him — he might have already left by the time Haven was destroyed. If we head to this fortress, we can ask if anyone knows where he might have gone. We’ll find something.”

Jinki nods stiffly. The agreement is disquieting, and Jinki following in his step when he exits the inn to go purchase supplies more so. Even in the first city they had visited, when humans were bustling about, Jinki had made sure to never follow him. He’d held his head high, as if to show off the dark _vallaslin_ markings that cut across his cheeks.

Jonghyun glances back at Jinki, expecting him to pick up his step or at least flinch at the cacophony of the market around them, only to find Jinki looking past him with the blank stare he’d thought was finally gone.

Of all the things in the world, he knows that losing Taemin would break Jinki.

That night, Jonghyun uses his time dreaming in the Fade to search for some sort of spirit that can assure him Taemin is alive. Though he knows it's unlikely — spirits are rarely interested in those without magic, and there’s no solid way of communicating with most of them — he still tries, rushing through realm after realm in hopes of a hint.

His worries twist the world around him, swirling the mysts until they solidify into the forms of a dozen templars. They draw their swords at him, and Jonghyun tries to summon a spell, but his mind is too focused on the memory of their mage-silencing abilities for him to find his magic.

All he has is his staff, and even that seems to vanish from his hands as the templars loom closer.

He wakes in a sweat. His last memory of the Fade is of him on his knees, begging a passing spirit of Compassion for help.

When he rises, he sees Jinki is watching him from the door, lips an impassive line.

“Are you ready?”

Jonghyun swallows. “I will be in a minute.”

He stands and gathers his things, ignoring the shaking in his hands left from the remnants of his nightmare. His nightmares have been free of templars for months, and he’s never been so fearful that he’s lost his ability to use magic in the Fade.

Both of them are quiet on their way out of the city, lost in their thoughts. Jonghyun purchases another basket of pastries that they share as they walk to the Southern edge of the city. A caravan of dwarven traders invites them to join them for part of their journey south, citing Jinki’s markings and Jonghyun’s staff as sufficient intimidation for any bandits they might encounter along the way. To shave some days off their travel, they agree to come along, and stick with the caravan until they reach the Frostback Mountains, where they split.

As soon as they had reached the mountains, the weather turned to a biting cold. Jonghyun uses some of his coin to purchase them an extra cloak each and a pair of boots for Jinki at the small outpost marking the path up to Skyhold. After a short rest and a quick meal, they begin to hike the well-worn path up the mountains towards the new Inquisition base.

At least the grimace on Jinki’s face is from annoyance now, and not pain. He only says a few of his complaints aloud, but Jonghyun can tell the growing cold is grating on him, and being forced to wear true footwear is as well. An inappropriate giggle sneaks up his throat every time he catches Jinki glaring down at the thick boots as if they were traps clamped around his legs to hinder his movement.

The hazards of snow are new for both of them. It fell on Jonghyun’s cabin in some winters, but never for more than a few days, and never in the amount the mountains seem to hold. Here, there are mounds of it, blown into great drifts and covering all but the tallest rocks. As they round the trail to the west side of one of the mountains, Jonghyun nearly falls for the dozenth time that day when his feet sink into a deep pocket of the fresh white powder, but the curse on his lips is quickly dispelled by the sight before him.

“Wow.”

Jonghyun dusts off his robes, movement slowed by his wonder at the mountains ahead.  The setting sun pinkens the snow, and frozen ponds dot glowing orange across the landscape for miles ahead.

He breathes slowly, letting the image sink in. “I never imagined I’d see anything like this — I can almost see how Taemin enjoys traveling.”

Jinki stops next to him. For a moment, Jonghyun realizes he might have said the wrong thing — he probably should have known better than to bring up Taemin, when they still don’t have confirmation he’s alive — but he relaxes when Jinki brushes a hand against his side.

He gives a small exhale (a laugh, maybe? Jonghyun hopes) that leaves a white puff in the air. “It is a pretty view...” His nose wrinkles with a sniff. “Miserably cold, though.”

Jonghyun grimaces. “ _Very_ miserable. I can imagine the night will be worse, too.”

Jinki nods. “We should set up our tent for now, and get as far as we can tomorrow. The faster we move, the fewer nights we will need to spend out here.”

“True.” Jonghyun bites his lip as he helps Jinki unload the canvas wrapped in their traveling pack.

Neither of them mention the other reason they wish to hurry.

Jonghyun lights a fire before dark to keep them from freezing as they eat their meager rations, and in the tent, they press together closely, not bothering to even use the second bedroll. The cold snakes too deeply in Jonghyun’s bones, and Jinki seems in need of him again, though Jonghyun knows he’d never admit it.

The slow and beseeching fit of Jinki’s solid body around his is familiar. He half-expects Jinki to take him as he did in the inn, but a hand slips between them, and Jinki only murmurs something about needing warmth before lifting Jonghyun’s robes to press their bare skin together.

Jonghyun closes his eyes, appreciating the heat. He’s not sure if he drifts off, or simply fades into a trance before the morning, but he has no memories of entering the Fade  before the light of morning sneaking into their tent wakes him.

The moment he reaches to secure the flap, Jinki peels back the top of their bedroll and makes Jonghyun shiver at the sudden draft of cold air over his body.

“We should go. It’s light out.”

Jonghyun mumbles an agreement. He wonders if Jinki slept at all, but there’s no point in worrying — neither of them will rest soundly until they hear word of Taemin, and that won’t come until they reach the fortress the Inquisition holds.

Once their tent is torn down and back in Jinki’s bag, they begin the hike up the mountain. The pace Jinki sets is twice as brutal as yesterday, and Jonghyun is just about to ask him to slow down when the fog of the morning clears to reveal stone towers in the distance. Each tower is linked by a wall, and over the tops of them, Jonghyun can see the crest of several rooftops and a large flag bearing the Inquistion’s heraldry.

“That must be Skyhold,” Jonghyun says, struggling around the words as he tries to catch his breath.  “We’re close.”

Jinki nods, but doesn’t stop to respond. With gritted teeth, Jonghyun hurries after him, willing himself to think of Taemin and not the burning in his lungs.

The sun has already lowered behind the mountains to the west when they reach a stone bridge leading from the end of the trail to the gate of the stronghold. A dozen refugees in tattered clothes file near the entrance, followed by a caravan of what looks to be merchants and a small group of dwarves carting a heavy and tightly-sealed container of what Jonghyun can only guess is lyrium.

At the end of the bridge, guards in Inquisition armor stand on both sides of the fortress’ open gate, spears pointed to the sky. Between them, a small table covered with parchment and ink houses a bearded man that nods sympathetically to each refugee’s story before waving for them to enter.

The door behind him opens, and a robe-clad elf with a surly step joins them for a moment to light the torches on either side before returning to the fortress.

Jonghyun’s breath catches. He’s never seen a fellow mage cast a spell so casually out in the open — he hasn’t even seen magic other than his own in years.

He follows Jinki to reach the line ahead of them. He’d heard of the Inquisition’s alliance with the mages, but a part of him hadn’t believed it. He unfastens his staff to lean on it as they wait, and after a moment’s hesitation, pulls off the worn wrappings around the crystal embedded in the end. He’s expecting a shout or at least a hissed curse, but earns no more attention than a raise of Jinki’s brow and a slight frown from a nearby dwarf.

No one in the line seems to care that he’s a mage. And when they finally reach the record keeper, he only gives his staff a single glance before tapping his quill against the parchment in front of him and adding a new blot of ink to the crowd at the corner of the page. “Are you an a apostate, or a refugee from one of the disbanded Circles?”

“...Apostate,” Jonghyun answers after a pause. “I haven’t lived in a Circle for years.”

The man marks this down on the paper as if it were no more concerning than his hair color, then nods to Jinki.

“You’re Dalish, eh? Are you are a mage as well?”

“I am Dalish,” Jinki says. He lifts his chin, either from pride at having his Dalishness acknowledged as something other than a curse or in defiance to being called a mage. “But I’m not a mage.”

The man’s brows furrow as he looks between them, trying to come up with a reason for a Dalish elf and a human apostate to travel together before shaking his head and asking them outright. “You’re an odd pair. You both refugees, or what?”

“Not quite,” Jonghyun says, taking over to prevent any further questions. “We’re actually looking for information on a friend.  We believe he visited Haven, before it was destroyed, and we’re trying to make sure he’s alright. He likely arrived before the Inquisition was formed, or right when it happened, but we were hoping someone might remember him — he tends to stick out.”

“What’s his name?”

“Taemin. He’s an elf — blond hair, probably still long, wears it in a ponytail —”

“Ah — Taemin?” The man’s eyes light up in recognition, and he lets out a bellowing laugh. “Maker, that one’s memorable. I assume you’re lookin’ for the boy that sounds like some kind of crossbreed between an Antivan and a Tevinter?”

Jonghyun nods. His heart clutches tight in his chest when the man pauses, and he can feel Jinki’s arm against him as he leans forward.

“He’s still here — been here since we started, same as me. They have him putting together information and making maps. I see him come in and out of here with scouting parties often.” The man rubs the prickly hairs of his chin. “He’s a strange elf, but well—” he eyes Jinki up and down, then stares right at the _vallaslin_ on his cheeks and grins. “I imagine he isn’t the strangest one we could have here, eh?”

Jinki ignores the teasing and leans forward. “Where can I find him? Will you let us in?”

The man’s expression sobers. “He has his own room in the east tower, on the second floor. And sure, you both can go in — just be sure to speak with the quartermaster before you settle in anywhere. Space is gettin’ a little tight with all the mages we have coming in now that the war’s over and the Circles are all gone.”

Jinki, in the little bit of emotion he allows himself to show, looks like he wants to turn and run. But when the man gestures for them to head through the gates, Jinki walks through them with the same determined square of his shoulder’s he’d been wearing since they first set south.

Jonghyun follows after him. A shout from a nearby soldier makes Jinki flinch mid-step, and Jonghyun reaches out to grab his hand, but stops himself before their fingers touch.

Jinki had never said outright he didn’t want their relationship to be public, but Jonghyun can guess he doesn’t want the first thing the Inquisition learns of him to be his partnership with an apostate, however accepted they might be.

He follows Jinki to the tower. After the all-day hike, the stairs should seem insurmountable, but his eagerness to see Taemin well and alive carries him up the stairs quickly.

Down the winding hall they reach an open door. After a glance inside, Jinki freezes with wide eyes, and Jonghyun stops by his side.

The room is littered with parchment, ink wells, and tools, but Jonghyun only sees a familiar head of blonde hair and a pair of long-pointed ears.

“Whoever you are, I’m busy.” Taemin waves a hand in their direction, not looking up from the parchment in front of him. “And if this is about the broken table in the tavern, that was _not_ related to my dancing on it.”

“You broke a table?” Jonghyun asks.

“Maker, I just said, it wasn’t—” Taemin looks up to them, and the scowl on his lips freezes and falls. His brows knit together, then his eyes go wide, and he looks between them with bewilderment.

“...Jonghyun?” When Jonghyun nods, he stands, focus shifting quickly. “ _Jinki_?”

Jinki steps forward. A grin finally blooms on Taemin’s lips, and he throws his quill to the stone floor and runs to embrace them. “Maker’s balls! What are you two doing here?”

Jinki stiffens in Taemin’s hold, and Jonghyun answers for him. “It’s a long story.”

“I’d expect so!” He pulls back and nods to Jonghyun’s staff. “Though I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised at Jonghyun being here, since we’ve had mages from all over the world join us — but I can’t say I expected it. Never seen you out of that damned clearing before, except those times you hunted with Jinki.”

Jonghyun smiles stiffly. He glances at Jinki, trying to read his expression, but settles on a half-truth when he receives no answer. “Well, you know — I was interested in hearing what happened with the mages.”

“Yeah, they’re allies now — though that’s old news at this point.” Taemin shrugs and turns to Jinki with a raised brow. “But why are _you_ here? There’s no forests for you to frolic through down here, and I can’t imagine you in all your Dalish-righteousness wanting to join an organization so closely tied to the Chantry.”

Jinki looks down and pulls his lip between his teeth. Jonghyun’s fingers itch with the urge to offer a reassuring touch, but he holds back when he sees Jinki draw his breath to speak.

“My clan is gone.” He stops, breath halting as he swallows. “All of them. There were no survivors I could find.”

Taemin gapes. “...Survivors? Then you mean—”

“They were killed,” Jinki says, stone-faced. “I don’t know who did it. I was at Jonghyun’s the night it happened.”

“Maker, I can’t...” Taemin’s hand hovers over Jinki’s shoulder, clearly unsure what to do. “We’d heard of elves being attacked in the Free Marches after they were blamed for a plague, but only in the cities. I had no idea....” Taemin trails off, then clears his throat. “I’m so sorry, Jinki.”

Jinki’s gaze turns sharp. “Who attacked them?”

“It’s a bit complicated, and wrapped up in Inquisition business.” Taemin rubs his nose. “I’m not sure how much the whole story matters.”

“I want to hear everything.”

“Alright, well...” Taemin sighs. “There’s this group called the Venatori that was trying to manipulate all the mages into working for them, in exchange for help in the war.”

“ _Venatori_?” Jinki repeats. He clenches his fist, the knuckles of his shaking hands turning white. “That sounds Tevene.”

“It is. They’re a Tevinter supremacy cult bent on taking over all the lands — typical Tevinter villanry, but worse. We stopped them from getting the mages, but their people are everywhere, it seems — they had their people poison the wells in the city that was close to your clan for some twisted magic experiments, but only the humans ones. And naturally, when the humans got sick, but the elves didn’t, the nobles called it a curse and blamed the elves. So they purged the slums.”

“And my clan.” Jinki swallows. “Are you still fighting them?”

“Of course.” Taemin squeezes Jinki’s shoulder. “That’s our primary mission now — taking down their leader and all their little pockets.”

“ _Elgar’nan ghilani_...” Jinki mumbles. Jonghyun doesn’t have time to recall what god or goddess Jinki invoked before he lifts his chin to look at Taemin directly. “What can I do to help your Inquisition, then?”

“Help...?” Taemin’s eyes widen. “You’d want to join?”

“Yes. If helping you hurts the _shems_ that killed my clan, I will help.”

“Well — we don’t turn away any able warriors...” Taemin glances at Jonghyun for help, but he has none to give. “But are you sure you want to do this? It’s not likely you’ll get to deal with any of the humans responsible for what happened to your clan.”

“Helping you hurts them, doesn’t it?” Jinki says. “And that’s what I want.”

Taemin stares at him, then looks to Jonghyun for something, obviously lost for what to say to Jinki’s sudden determination.

Jonghyun has no help for him — he’s just as shocked.

Jinki crosses his arms and looks down at Taemin. “Do you not want me to join?”

“Of course not — Maker, I know you’re stubborn, and I’m not going to argue with you about it.” Taemin stops, holding back his thoughts for a moment, then continues. “But it’s a bit impulsive. You come here to see me, and now you’re going to join some organization you likely know nothing about—”

“You’re in it, aren’t you? Surely you think good of it.”

“Fine.” Taemin huffs and slumps against the nearest wall. “Speak with the quartermaster first, she’ll find you a place to sleep and an assignment. I can tell you’re in a mood, so I’ll just wait until you’re done and all this has sunk in for us to catch up—” he waves towards the door, but catches Jinki’s eyes with a sympathetic smile before he can turn. “Just know I’m here if you need anything. And I’m sorry for what happened.”

Jinki nods, lips tight, and leaves the room.

Jonghyun watches him leave with a tug in his chest, then smiles apologetically at Taemin.  “Sorry, I should—”

“We’ll catch up later.” Taemin assures him with a pat of his shoulder. “Follow him and make sure Jinki doesn’t do anything stupid., if you don’t mind? You’ve seen how he gets when something sets him off.”

Jonghyun dashes out after Jinki, thoughts racing.

Though he hadn’t expected seeing Taemin to fix everything, he’d imagined a happier reunion for the two friends.  But Jinki’s relief at finding Taemin alive had been snatched away, replaced with anger at the fresh knowledge that the country responsible for his slavery was behind the death of his clan. And now he’s going to throw himself into danger for whatever revenge he can get.

He’d wanted Jinki to find a purpose, since he’d seemed so listless, but he hadn’t imagined it being _this._

On their way to Taemin’s room, he hadn’t noticed the view of the expansive fortress yards from the open windows in the hallway, or the decades of wear in the stone walls, but he doesn’t have time to wonder at them as he runs.

At the last doorway, he finally catches up. Jinki halts when he hears his approach, and Jonghyun skids to a stop beside him, boots slipping in the melted snow on the stone until he balances himself on his staff.

“Jinki, wait,” Jonghyun pants. His stomach churns, and the empty ache in his chest is from more than worry at Jinki’s safety.

Jinki had made the decision to join the Inquisition without even looking to him for an opinion.

He swallows that bitterness down. “Would you want me to join with you?”

Jinki turns to him, expression softer than Jonghyun’s seen in days. “You don’t need to.”

“I know.” Jonghyun runs a finger along one of the gouges in his staff, suddenly embarrassed. “But mages from everywhere are here now, too. It would make sense for me to join.”

“That’s true.”

“I mean, it’s not just that....” He reaches for Jinki’s hand and hooks their fingers together. “I meant what I said, when we first started traveling.”

A flush blooms at the high curve of Jinki’s markings. He stares at Jonghyun, lost for what to say, then clears his throat. “We should, uh, find lodging as Taemin suggested. Before dark.”

Jonghyun nods, and together, they step back into the courtyard of the fortress. He only realizes then that Taemin hadn’t given them directions to the quartermaster, forcing him to look around until he finds someone not wrapped up in their work for directions. By the time they’ve figured out where to head in the vast fortress, several humans and a few elves have gathered on the closest battlement, and Jonghyun can tell from the direction of their fingers that they’re pointing to Jinki’s markings.

He’s not sure if Jinki’s noticed, but he hurries them along to the building before anyone bolder can approach them directly.

The quartermaster’s office is already dark when they arrive, and a straight-nosed woman with the chastising stare of a Chantry priestess eyes them narrowly as they enter. “As many odd characters as I get in here, I can’t say I’ve ever seen any _Dalish_ come through.” Her Ferelden accent is thick and drawling, and there’s a visible pause as she takes in the markings on Jinki’s face. “What might you be looking for?”

Jonghyun answers for them, if only to get her attention off Jinki. “A place to stay, if possible.”

“Hm.” She crosses her arms. “Do you plan on joining the Inquisition?”

Jonghyun watches as she picks up a leather notebook with _recruits_ engraved on the front and opens it.

He’d worked so hard to avoid the war between the mages and templars, and now he’s _volunteering_ for an organization that likely sees just as much fighting.

He swallows. “Yes. We both would like to. I’m Jonghyun, and this is Jinki.”

“Well, I take from the staff at your back that you're a mage.” She tilts her head towards Jonghyun, who nods, then at Jinki with a lifted brow. “And your Dalish friend’s skills are...?”

“I was a hunter for my clan,” Jinki says. “I can use a bow as well as daggers. I’m also a skilled carpenter.”

“Hm.” She raises a brow, seeming to size him up, then jots down his name. “We’ll put you with the other recruits. You’ll start with our training captain tomorrow. Meet him out in the east yards at dawn, and you can stay in the soldiers’ barracks for the night. If the captain decides you’re not a good enough fighter, they’ll put you with the workers.” She flips to a different page marked with the symbol for magic and adds Jonghyun’s name. “The mage can stay in the tower.”

“Does he have to stay there?” Jinki asks, and Jonghyun blinks in surprise. “Or is there a way we can have a room together?”

“Together?” She echoes, eyes wide. She looks between them, putting the pieces together — not many circumstances would allow for a human and an elf to become close friends, let alone partners — and Jonghyun feels his cheeks warm from the inspecting stare.

“Well, that’s...” She stops to clear her throat.  That’s a request I can’t fulfill. Guest rooms are for visiting nobility only, so I’d recommend you just go where I told you. But if you’re set on sharing a room, you’re welcome to explore the place — this place is damned big if you haven’t already noticed, and it looks like you already have a bedroll. You might find something for you two.”

After a quick exchange of thanks, Jinki and Jonghyun leave the office behind to search the fortress for somewhere to sleep through the night. Out in the open, there are too many wandering troops and servants for them to set up their tent. They quickly narrow their search to the crannies of the fortress, and the _something_ the quartermaster had suggested turns out to be a small room placed high over the storage barn.

The chill of the mountain is worse than it had been in the courtyard, and Jonghyun thinks with the slightest bit of envy of the heating runes the newly-constructed mage tower must have had built into it already. It at least gives Jinki an excuse to press against him through the whole night, instead of the embrace-and-retreat dance he had been doing since their travels began.

Every breeze that sneaks in makes him shiver. There’s a hole in one of the walls, on his side, and a few dozen in the thatched roof. He manages to pry Jinki off of him long enough to do something about it only when he explains he’s going to cover the source of the draft.

After a moment of searching blindly across the stone floor, he finds the canvas they’d used for their tent and fixes it over the small hole. Satisfied with his work, he crawls back to the bedroll and lifts the top to slip inside, only to jolt at the sudden touch of something on his arm.

He looks down, squinting through the dark until he can discern Jinki’s hand on his wrist.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “For staying.”

Jonghyun smiles. He pulls his hand away only to lace his fingers with Jinki’s when he joins him fully under the covers. “It’s what I wanted to do. You don’t need to thank me.”


	2. Chapter 2

The morning eases Jinki out of his sleep with the sound of boxes moving in the storage barn below them. Guilt tugs on his stomach when it sinks in that he’d slept through the night.

He’d meant to visit Taemin again, after they’d found what was now their room, but he’d been too relieved to find somewhere to rest other than the _shem_ -filled barrack to think of anything beyond unpacking his and Jonghyun’s bedroll. Though knowing Taemin is safe comforts him, his nerves are still on edge from the presence of so many humans.

Perhaps if he cared more for his own happiness, he’d leave the fortress behind and find somewhere else to live, now that he knows Taemin is alive and easy to find.

He slips out of the bedroll quietly, mind set on the training ahead.

Jonghyun stirs when he leaves, brows furrowing at the loss of warmth, but he doesn’t wake. Jinki waits for the crease in his forehead to fade before tucking the bedroll tighter around him to ensure he stays warm.

He owes Jonghyun too much not to care for his comfort.

If Jonghyun hadn’t suggested following Taemin south, Jinki’s not sure he would have thought of it. And without that, he would never have learned who was behind the slaughter of his clan.

Though the shock of it all is still there, it’s dulled now, replaced by a sense of purpose. _Shem_ organization or not, the Inquisition is going after the people behind it, and hurting them in any way he can is enough.

Not wanting to bother with finding the mess hall before the training he’d been instructed to join, he digs through their bag for the last of their rations and heads down the rickety ladder that leads to their room.

He grimaces as he pulls the boots he’d left at the bottom onto his feet. As much as he’d worn them in the past week, he still can’t stand the constriction of the wool sock and leather over his toes.

The courtyard is already buzzing with the first waves of activity when he steps outside. Most of the activity is familiar, from their short travels through cities, and the differences from the mornings with clan give him the same ache. There’s no herders murmuring to halla, no scent of elfroot brewing for the Keeper’s morning tea, and no laugh of Joonmyeon at how a crease from his sleep cut through his markings. Only horses, reigned and human-owned, and the bakers and cooks and stone workers and carpenters Jinki only knows how to distinguish from his life in Tevinter.

He’d certainly never been stared at, either, not with the fear and disdain he earns the moment humans or bare-faced city elves see the _vallaslin_ on his cheeks. Before he can catch more of that attention, he hurries to where he’d been instructed to meet the other recruits.

Through a stone archway, he finds the courtyard allotted to training. Training dummies line the outermost wall. A box of dulled swords and battered shields rests outside the nearby shed that Jinki assumes holds their training weapons.

A dozen men and women are already present and waiting. The Fereldens are easy to pick out from the others. Used to the harsh cold, they chat idly with each other. Women with the dark and strong features of Antiva and Rivain clutch at each other’s hands and glare at the nearest pile of snow.

And though the group is made up of people from every country — excluding Tevinter, of course — all of them are human.

Jinki’s stomach clenches. A part of him had hoped to find another elf here, even if they were bare-faced and city born, just to prevent himself from being singled out.

But luck isn’t with him, and there isn’t anything to do about it now. He won’t let his wariness of _shems_ keep him from seeking revenge.

Lifting his chin, he crosses the courtyard to stand beside the waiting group of humans

A silence falls that captures even the chattier humans. The snow crunches beneath his boots, and he squares his shoulders, suppressing the urge to shiver or fidget.

The group’s attention finally shifts away from him when a tall human in full plate armor descends the nearby stairs. His dark hair curls around his rounded ears, and he greets them all with a smile unnaturally cheerful for the early hour and the biting cold.

“Morning, recruits.” He stops in front of them. “My name is Minho, and I’ll be your training captain. We appreciate you choosing to join the Inquisition.”

Jinki tunes out the rest of his speech — something about the Maker, Andraste, and other useless religious things he doesn’t care to hear about — and watches him instead.

Minho’s gaze travels down the line of men and women, meeting each of their eyes as he explains their overall goals with the training. When he reaches Jinki, his eyes widen slightly, obviously not expecting an elf amongst the recruits.

Jinki stares back. A sliver of doubt creeps up his spine as it always does when he stares at a _shem_ — he isn’t stupid, and knows a show of pride to the wrong human could cost him his life — but the man only offers him a confused smile before his attention slips away from him to the next person in line.

Minho taps on the box of worn weapons and shields, getting all the recruits attention. “Grab a sword and a shield. We’ll be training you on the basics to start with. A defense is important to keeping you alive, and we want you ready for an attack as soon as you can be.”

After the trainees all pick out their weapons, Minho gestures for the weathered, tall woman that had been standing off to the side to join him.

“We’ll demonstrate a basic drill that will help with your reflexes. When someone swings at you, you’ll likely instinctively flinch back, which could throw off your guard. All it takes is letting your shield down once for an opponent to slip their sword past you, and then it’s over.

“But we’re not only worried about physical combat.” He raps at the back of his sparring partner’s shield to tilt it away from his face. “When fighting mages, you’ll want to angle your shield slightly downwards — it keeps fire and acid from bouncing up onto you. Get in the habit of that.”

The captain continues the brief demonstration of the basic shield-blocking drill, then begins another that transitions into a parry. Between the rhythmic clang of the blunted practice sword against the wooden shield, Jinki hears whispers.

_Who invited the elf to train? I thought he was here to clean our gear after._

_I’ve never seen a halla rider before. Don’t look as scary as the tales say._

It’s not the worst he’s heard since leaving the clan, and he doesn’t want to give them the dignity of thinking he cares. Jinki fixes on an expression of indifference and adjusts the sword in his hand, testing the heft of it as he fixes his mind on the exercise ahead. He might only know the basics of fighting with a sword and shield, from some brief lessons with Hyoyeon, but that should still put him ahead of the _shem_ farmers that seem to make up his training partners.

 _Not that it had been useful against the number of shems she faced_.

The thought passes bitterly through his mind, and he grits his teeth against it. No, it hadn’t been useless. She’d fought as best she could against the odds she’d been given. He’d seen the several dead men around her, the arrows with her trademark blue-dyed feathers at the edges of camp, and pulled her sword from the gut of what he’d guessed was her last opponent.

“You’ve seen enough, I think — we’ll correct you as you work. Now pair off and get started!” Minho shouts.

Following the captain’s command, the humans file around him to stand in pairs on either side of a line that’d been carved into the snow by the captain. Jinki stands at the end of it, unsure what to do. He doubts anyone will want to pair off with him, and he’s not about to reach out to the same _shems_ that had been gossiping about him moments before. Eventually, a man with a wooden charm of Andraste hanging from his neck stops in front of him and takes the spot across from him with a sigh.

“Tch. Looks like we’re stuck with each other.”

Jinki nods. He enters a fighting stance and raises his shield, staring down the _shem_ across from him.

The man scowls and raises his own shield. He has a spotting of freckles across his nose from years in the sun and a farmer’s full arms. Jinki winces at the strength in them when the first hit bangs against his shield, but manages to keep his shield raised.

As they’d been instructed, he makes his own strike back, and the man’s eyes widen when Jinki’s blow draws a flinch and forces his shield to tilt upwards, leaving his neck and collar exposed to an easy downstrike or a stab at the neck.

“Keep it high, greenhorn!” The woman that had been paired off with Minho for the demonstration shouts towards them. “Your shield has to be _up_ to be of use.”

The farmer reddens. He jerks his shield upwards and glares at Jinki, knuckles turning white around the hilt of his dulled sword.

Jinki’s lips twitch with amusement at the corners as he readies himself for the man’s next strike. Hopefully, that will be the only time the _shems_ underestimate him. Their disdain will be easy to handle if his abilities are at least respected.  

The next blow he receives is stronger, which Jinki had expected — but it doesn’t end when the sword clangs against his shield. A twitch in the other man’s chest gives away his intent, but Jinki barely has time to react as the man quickly swings his sword fully around try and strike Jinki at his side.

Just barely, Jinki catches the blow with his sword before it can reach his side. As he tries to push the blade away, the man twists his arm, forcing their sword hilts to lock between them.

“We don’t need any damn _knife-ears_ in our army,” he snarls. “We’re fine without you heathens.”

Jinki’s chest tightens with rage. He adds force behind his push, then steps forward. The man clenches his jaw when he tries to push back, then swears as he’s pushed back and out of line. Though the other man is larger than him, he’d clearly underestimated Jinki’s strength.

“You two!”

A sudden addition of another sword between their locked blades makes them both jolt, though they don’t engage. Jinki follows the weapon to its owner, meeting the gaze of the captain. “We’re doing a _drill_ , not testing each other’s strength. What’s going on?”

The farmer twists his sword to free it, and Jinki nearly stumbles forward at the sudden loss of force. ”Wasn’t doing anything, sir. I gave my thanks to the Maker for bringing us here, and next thing I know, the savage starts pushing me back—”

“Enough.” Minho cuts him off with a raise of his hand. His large eyes shift between them, stopping at Jinki. “Let me hear what he thinks. What happened?”

Jinki shakes out his sword arm and shrugs. He has too much pride to involve another _shem_ , and he doubts this training captain would care. _Knife-ear_ is a common word from any Ferelden’s tongue, and it could never hold the same sting the Tevene words for elves do.

“You don’t have anything to say?”

Jinki sighs. He knows stubbornness when he sees it.  “He doesn’t think I belong in the Inquisition. I disagreed.”

Minho crosses his arms and turns to the farmer. “Is that true? You said he doesn’t belong?”

“Yes.”

“The Inquisition needs all the help we can get, you know. If you have an issue with us accepting help from elves, take it up with our leader.”

“But sir, he’s not just a knife—” He stops himself when the captain’s eyes narrow. “An elf. He’s a wild one. _Dalish_. Do we really want someone like that here?”

“He seems civilized enough to me.” Minho stares the farmer down until he grunts in agreement. “Now, can you resume the drill in peace?”

“Yessir.”

Jinki glares at the man, but raises his shield and nods.

***

Jonghyun wakes alone. The moment he’s conscious enough to register the temperature, his body protests at the cold. He shivers, teeth rattling, and he clenches the blankets tighter around himself to try and contain the last bits of warmth in the bedroll.

Without Jinki there, it’s a pointless battle. And he can’t risk using magic to heat himself or his surroundings, not when the floor under him is wood.

Reluctantly, he kicks down the bedroll and grabs his thickest robes to pull over his head. Jinki’s likely already off at whatever training the Inquisition decided to put him through. He should do as the quarter master instructed, and meet up with the mages.

But spirits, he hasn’t spoken to another mage in years. The company of people like himself is the only thing he missed about the Circle.

And if he runs into anyone that remembers him from there? He has no idea what he’ll say. A part of him still feels guilty for running off without the friends he’d made there. He’d wanted them all to escape together, but the chances of that were so slim he’d never given it more than a half-breath’s consideration.  Including others meant talking, meant laying out more detailed plans that could be overheard at any moment by a wandering templar or ratted out by a nervous mage.

He sighs when he reaches the bottom of the ladder from the attic that makes up his and Jinki’s room. Hopefully, if any mage in the Inquisition happens to be from the Circle he was placed at, they’ll forgive him for running off alone.

The mage tower is easy to find. The closer he gets, the thinner the barrier between the real world and the Fade feels. Goosebumps form on his arms from the steady pulse of ambient magic, and he shivers despite the warmth enchantments on the walls.

Even in the Circle, with mages packed on top of each other in dorms, he’s not sure he’d ever felt this much magic in one place. Though he’s certain the Inquisition has powerful mages, he can’t imagine that would explain the energy practically reverberating off the walls.

He smiles at the realization. Without templars breathing down their necks, they must have stopped bottling up their mana. He’d felt his own hold on his magic relax and grow after his first year away from the Circle.

A spark from his left draws his eye. He turns to look, and there’s three apprentices — a lanky elf and two full-cheeked humans — tossing a chain of lightning back and forth between them with their brows furrowed in concentration.

He stares, unable to help his blatant gaping at the playful and precise use of magic. He should move. He’s drawing attention to himself, gaping like a fool at the complex spell-casting a group of apprentices have begun in the corner, but he can’t help it — he isn’t sure he could put in half the magic required to start the spell.

Though he’s never cared for power, a petty part of him is nettled by the knowledge that mages five years younger could easily outmatch him.

He tears himself away from the display to move through the tower and find someone who appears to be in charge.

On the third floor, he finds himself lost amongst mismatched shelves. He turns back to a woman he’d passed earlier, only to stop when he realizes she’s nose-deep in a book 

Long, dark hair falls over her shoulders. The tips of her pointed ears peek through it, and it shifts around her when she slumps back in her chair with a disdainful sigh.

His eyes widen when he sees her face, recognizing it in an instant.  “…Soojung?”

She stares at him as if she’d seen a ghost. “You — Jonghyun?”

He smiles hesitantly, for once finding himself speechless. “It’s me, yes.”

“Maker’s breath!” She shoots up from her seat and darts over to him, grabbing him fiercely and pulling him into a hug. Her embrace is as tight as ever, and Jonghyun can barely make out the words that follow a muffled huff against his shoulder. “You’re an asshole, you know. All this time, I thought you were dead.”

“Fortunately not.” Jonghyun laughs and gives a quick squeeze back before pulling away to assess the changes. The years have taken away the youthful fullness of her cheeks, leaving her with a sharp and graceful look, but the spark of mischievousness in her eyes is as bright as ever.  He smiles. “I was worried about everyone in the Circle when I heard about the war. I’m glad to see you’re well. You look more mature than I remember.”

Soojung fixes her hair back behind her pointed ears and grins. “Of course I do!  It’s been eight years.” She quirks a brow, looking him up and down. “Though I see time hasn’t benefited your height in the least.”

“And your personality hasn’t benefited, either,” he teases, then looks around the hall. “Is anyone else from our Circle here?”

“No. Not all of us made it…” She frowns. “Especially after what happened to Haven. Changmin and Baekhyun are really the only ones left.”

Jonghyun’s throat tightens. He’d known dozens of mages in the Circle, and for only two of them to have survived — he can’t imagine what Soojung had seen.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. Most of them got to feel the rain and have a bit of templar-disapproved fun before they were killed, so…it’s not as bad it could have been.” Her smile is bitter, but there’s no regret behind it. “But I can tell you more of those stories later. How about you? Where have you been all these years? It’s hard for me to imagine you living as one of those dangerous apostates, dabbling in blood magic and demons.”

Jonghyun rolls his eyes. “I found a little cabin and holed up in the woods around Ansburg. Didn’t leave there much, honestly.”

“You stayed there through the war, too?”

Guilt weighs on his stomach. “Yeah.”

“Smart.” Soojung grins at him, and this time, its entirely genuine. “Really — it’s good you got out of there when you did, and stayed away. Things got bad quickly, once the first mage rebellions started. Even the other mages that thought the Maker meant for us to be locked up weren’t able to stand how terrible the templars got.”

Jonghyun laughs. “I can’t imagine Baekhyun dealt with it well, with how he used to complain about every little restriction. ”

Soojung’s expression instantly flattens. She looks away, refusing to meet his eyes, and Jonghyun stares at her in confusion.

She’d mentioned that Baekhyun was alive just moments ago, hadn’t she?

“Is he hurt?”

She shakes her head and looks down. Her fingers play with the ends of her hair, a nervous gesture he’s never seen on her.  "Not physically.”

Bile crawls up Jonghyun’s throat.

Those words are enough. He knows exactly what that means, even without Soojung saying it, but her next words still feel like a knife through his chest.

“They made him Tranquil before the Circles ended.“

Jonghyun’s stomach drops. "Tranquil? Why would they…?”

“When the first mages started rebelling, he got excited. You know how he was — always a staunch supporter of us breaking out of the Circle and ruling ourselves — and the templars didn’t like that.”

He clenches his fist to try and fight back the sting of tears.

Of all the things he’d feared the templars would do if they caught him, Tranquility was the worst.

Taking away a mage’s ability to use magic by severing their connection to the Fade — that was the reason templars did it, or so they claimed — would erase any danger they posed.

But Tranquility never did just that. It took away a mage’s emotions and desires completely, leaving them with only the blank eyes and monotone voices Jonghyun had tried so hard to forget after he’d left the Circle.

And the thought of Baekhyun as one of them? Without magic, without dreams, without passion, or the barking laugh that would always echo through the tower…

His throat tightens, but somehow, he manages to speak. “Is Baekhyun here?”

She nods. “Upstairs. I have him researching light glyphs, at the moment—”

“You’re making him research?” Jonghyun snaps. “Putting him on some little project of yours, like they did with the Tranquil in the Circles?”

Soojung glares at him. “What else would I do? Let someone else order him around, instead? Have him stare into space for an eternity? Assign him to making the baths and cleaning the chamber pots as the templars did?” When Jonghyun doesn’t respond, she sighs and pushes back her hair. “I know it’s not ideal, but I’m trying to give him things he used to enjoy researching. In case he’s still in there.”

“Yeah.” Jonghyun sighs and pinches his brow. “I’m sorry. I’m just…having trouble wrapping my mind around it. Mages are free now, the war’s over, but he’s still going to be—”

“I know.” Soojung places a hand on his shoulder. “And I know you were fond of him.”

Jonghyun leans into it until she pulls him into an embrace. The closeness brings his tears back, and before he can stop them, they’re rolling down his cheeks unbidden and he’s shaking in her arms. “He was the only one willing to sneak out of his bunk to visit me when I couldn’t sleep at night.”

“Yeah.” A small huff of laughter from her falls against his shoulder. “He was the only one who could stand your sleep-deprived ramblings.”

Pulling away, he blots at his eyes with the sleeve of his robe. “If he’s here, can I see him?”

Soojung eyes him warily. “…Are you sure you want to?”

Jonghyun nods. “I am. I’ve spent enough time away from you all.”

“Alright.” She gestures to the nearest flight of stairs. “He’s on the floor above us. I’ll come with you.”

The fourth floor is eerily quiet. There’s none of the murmurs of scholars, or the crackle of magic. Only the occasional turn of a page or the scratch of a quill indicate the floor is occupied by humans at all.

And there’s several there — but all of them Tranquil. A few of them turn and look at Jonghyun and Soojung when they reach the floor, but the attention only lasts for a moment before they turn back to their work.

He lets Soojung lead the way through the winding shelves and tables to a secluded corner. A man with familiar chestnut hair sits at the table stuffed with perfectly organized parchment, books, and inkwells.

“Baekhyun,” she says. “Someone’s here to see you.”

Baekhyun stands and turns. There’s no surprise on his face when he sees Jonghyun, not a glimpse of relief or excitement or anything else he _should_ have felt in his eyes, but Jonghyun can tell he’s been recognized. Baekhyun’s lips turn up into the placid and toothless smile the Tranquil wear to prevent others from being uncomfortable in their presence.

“Hello, Jonghyun.”

“Baekhyun.” Jonghyun tries to sound unbothered, but his voice wavers when his eyes rest on the sunburst brand of Tranquility on Baekhyun’s forehead. “It’s…been a long time, since I’ve seen you.”

“It has been about eight years.”

“It has.” Jonghyun hates himself for how his gaze falls down down to the floor, but he can’t help it — if Baekhyun is in there, he doesn’t want him to see his tears, and he can’t stand seeing that blank look a moment longer. “How’ve you been?”

“I am healthy, thank you. Soojung has taken care of me. Many of the other Tranquil were killed or left behind when the mages left the Circles.”

“That’s good.” Jonghyun sends her a grateful smile before turning back to Baekhyun. “I’m part of the Inquisition now, so I might see you around.”

Baekhyun nods. “Yes.”

Jonghyun licks his lips, waiting a pause — it’s been years, and Baekhyun is staring at him blankly, but a part of him is still expects Baekhyun to take over the conversation with a dirty joke or grin like he used to.

He should know better, when the evidence that his old friend’s emotions are gone is right in front of him and emblazoned on Baekhyun’s forehead.

“Well—” he clears his throat and forces himself to stand straight. “Soojung and I have more to catch up on, so I suppose we’ll talk more later.”

With only a short “goodbye,” Baekhyun returns to his work.

The stiff farewell stings him more than anything else had.  Jonghyun hurries to the stairs, ignoring the uncurious gazes of the other Tranquil when he bumps into their tables. He wants to apologize for leaving, but how much would that mean? Baekhyun can’t feel anything now. Maybe if he hadn’t left, he could’ve done something.

“I wish I had been there,” Jonghyun breathes. Hot rage burns in his stomach as he wipes away his tears before they can reach his cheeks. “I hope you got the templar that suggested doing that damn rite on him.”

“Oh, I did.” She gives him a tight grin, and flings open her palm, conjuring a spike of ice just above it. “Froze him solid while he was busy trying to lock the Tranquil in their rooms to keep them _safe_ from us rebels. He was the same bastard that hit you for sneaking into the kitchens to take extra spices.”

“I remember him.” Jonghyun shakes his head. The mark on his cheek had stung for a week. He’d been naive enough to complain to the templar’s knight-captain, and that’s when he’d learned better than to bother with questioning their authority.

“I thought you would.” Soojung sighs. With a wave of her hand, the spike of ice shatters into harmless flakes that fall onto the stone floor.

The sight eases some of the ache in Jonghyun’s chest. He’s certain Soojung did it on purpose — the moment they’d learned their first ice spell, they tried casting it dozens of times to create snow and simulate the outdoors after the templars had forbidden them from playing on the Circle tower’s roof.

Jonghyun shakes off the memory. “Did you ever manage to make snow indoors?”

“More than snow.” She pushes her hair back behind her ears and grins. “I can make an entire blizzard now, though it only lasts for a minute.”

“Wow.” Jonghyun’s eyes widen. “You’ve improved.”

“It has been eight years — plenty of time for me to master a few schools of magic.” She eyes him thoughtfully. “But what about you? Pick up any dangerous things as an apostate? I know you never had much luck when we were apprentices, but…”

“I can’t say I’m improved — you know I was never gifted. I’ve gotten a little better at the basics of fire and ice, but other than that…” He shrugs. “I mostly just use my magic for plants, to help them grow faster or out-of-season.”

“Hm.” She crosses her arms and eyes him critically. “Since you’ve joined the Inquisition, I assume you _want_ to get better with your magic. Right? ”

Jonghyun bites his lip. He doesn’t know how to answer. He’d never wanted his magic — it’d just been something he was born with, and learned to deal with. And while he grew to accept that part of himself, he never held enough pride in it to pursue the more powerful spells Soojung admired.

But now?

He might need powerful magic — or as close as he can get, with his limited abilities.

He knows Jinki well enough to be certain that the first chance they get to do something against the Tevinter cult, he’ll be there. And Jonghyun wants to be able to be there with him. If not to fight, at least to protect him.

He’ll have to learn greater spells himself, if he doesn’t want to succumb to the temptations of Fade demons when he or Jinki is faced with danger.

Soojung tilts her head and frowns. “You don’t have to do magic here. If you’d rather help with the herb garden, you can always try—”

“No, no — I’d like to learn new magic.” He rubs his nose with the back of his hand. “I just don’t know where to start. It’s been years since I’ve had proper training, and I’m likely behind half the apprentices.”

“That’s fine, I’ll catch you up.” She grins. “I can’t imagine you’d want to get thrown in with any kids, and we don’t have many official teachers anymore. I’ll teach you some spells that’ll be useful in case you get sent out on the field, and then you can figure out what else you’d like to learn.”

***

After an afternoon of learning new spells, Jonghyun returns to the storage barn. His body aches, and the light from the setting sun feels like a jab that threatens to split his head in two. Working on his garden never took as much magic as this did, and he’d forgotten what reaching his limits felt like.

When he enters the storage barn, he keeps his eyes open just enough to avoid running into a crate as he drags himself towards the ladder to get to their room. Spirits, he could fall asleep now.

He looks up above for the hole in the barn’s roof that lead to the attic. Dark eyes with familiar and thin curled markings underneath peer down at him from the shadows. Jonghyun catches the glint of a blade, but Jinki speaks before he can question it.

“Ah, Jonghyun.” Jinki relaxes, and the metal disappears. “It didn’t sound like you.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. I’m a bit tired.” Jonghyun rubs his head and sighs. “I ran into an old friend, and she had me working all day.”

The ladder is lowered for him without a word. He forces himself to step onto the first rung, then grips the sides, making step after after step until he completes the agonizing climb up and reaches their room.

He pretends not to notice the knife Jinki had tossed aside in the corner when he climbs up — whatever Jinki needed to do to feel safe in a fortress packed with gawking humans, he wouldn’t comment on.

Instead, he nods to the small blanket Jinki had laid out opposite their bedroll covered with food. A basket of bread and a large bowl full of soup that Jonghyun wonders how he got up to the loft without spilling rests on top of it.

“You brought dinner?”

Jinki shrugs. “The mess hall was noisy.”

“I can imagine.” Jonghyun sighs and takes a seat on the opposite end of the blanket after stretching out his legs. “This place is so crowded. It seems like people from all over have joined the Inquisition. Most people seem to have a high opinion of it, which I can understand — they did end the mage and templar war, after all — but I’m still a bit shocked. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Mm.”

Jonghyun takes the spare spoon that Jinki had left beside the bowl to take a bit of the soup.

“How was training?”

Jinki takes another bite of his roll. “Mostly uninteresting.”

Jonghyun nods and sips more of the broth, feeling slightly more alive now — the soup wasn’t as good as his own, but it was something. He hadn’t realized until now that he’d gone all day without a meal.

Jinki leans close to him as he takes another spoonful. “Taemin said he’d be at the tavern later, after dark.”

“Oh.” Jonghyun blinks. “Do you want to meet him there?”

“Yes.” He pauses, leaving his spoon in the soup as he pretends to fish for a piece of meat. “You’re coming with?”

From the way Jinki’s avoiding his eyes, Jonghyun knows what he’s really asking is _if_ he’ll come with. And though he wants to rest, he doesn’t have it in him to leave Jinki to walk back alone.

“Of course. Taemin’s my friend too.”

Jinki smiles. He rests his free hand on Jonghyun’s knee, and they finish dinner like that, quiet as they share the rest of the soup between them.

It’s a little like their early days together in the cabin after Taemin left, and Jonghyun finds his aches are nearly forgotten by the time Jinki is scraping the tin bowl for the last bit of broth.

“You ready to go?” Jonghyun asks. Jinki nods and pockets his knife before descending the ladder first. The torches placed along the walls and paths of the fortress grounds make it easy to find the tavern, even in the dark, and Taemin spots them the moment they pass through the open door.

“Jinki, Jonghyun!” Taemin waves at them from a table packed to the brim with a mix of dwarves and humans and other elves. His other hand is full with cards, and there’s a breadth to his grin that nearly reaches his cheeks. He points to a table in a deserted corner. “I’ll meet you over there as soon as I wrap up this game so we can catch up. Drinks are on me!”

“Alright.” Jinki’s acknowledgement is nearly lost under the din of the tavern. A dozen eyes are already on him — Jonghyun can hear a bewildered mentions of _Dalish_ — and he hurries to the empty table.

Jonghyun follows him and takes a seat, watching Jinki worriedly. His ears twitch at every noise around him, and Jonghyun can tell the environment is setting him on edge.

As subtly as he cans, he leans in his chair to look at Taemin, blocking the view between Jinki and the rest of the tavern.

“Taemin looks in his element, doesn’t he?” Jonghyun comments, watching from the corner of his eye as Taemin scoops up a pile of coin with a grin and a wink towards a man standing on a nearby chair.

That earns him a pleased twitch of Jinki’s lips. “He does. He’s always liked gambling and liquor.”

“And yet he’s the most devout Andrastian I’ve ever met.”

Jinki snorts. His eyes follow Taemin to the counter, where he leans forward and exchanges a few jokes with the bartender before heading towards them with overflowing tankards of ale.

“This stuff tastes like shit, so my apologies in advance.” He sets one mug before each of them, then takes a deep drink of his own. “But it’s what we got, and it keeps us warm.”

“I could use that.” Jonghyun lifts his own and sips it, face scrunching instinctively at the bitter brew. Somehow, he manages to swallow it down, and watches across from his as Jinki does the same with only a twitch of his brow revealing his distaste.

“So—” Taemin pulls the nearest chair over to their table and seats himself in it. “How’s the mage tower, Jonghyun? I’ve only been in there a few times — for some reason, whatever those mages do in there makes my nose itch. I’ve heard they had someone enchant the mattresses or something to stay warm.” He sighs. “ _Maker_ , I’m jealous of that.”

“Jonghyun’s not in the mage tower,” Jinki says. “They’re overcrowded, so the quartermaster found a room to cram us into. We’re having to share an attic above one of the storage barn.”

“Oh, really?” Taemin looks to him for confirmation, and Jonghyun nods. “That sounds awful. Must be cold.”

“It is,” Jonghyun says. He takes a long drink to try and clear the lump in his throat, but the ale does little to lessen the hurt. It shouldn’t surprise him that Jinki wouldn’t tell Taemin about them, as private and timid as he seemed to be with such things. Spirits, Jinki had never even openly declared he wanted him or that they were lovers — there’d simply been kisses and a few words and, eventually, bedding.

But a part of him had still hoped.

He’s drawn out of thoughts when Jinki sets his mug down on the table with enough roughness to be heard over the voices around them.

“I don’t understand. Why did you join the Inquisition, Taemin?. Are they paying you well for your maps?”

“Not well enough, in my opinion.” Taemin grins and rests his head in his hands. “But I understand resources are limited, so it doesn’t bother me. Joining was more of a higher calling.”

Jinki raises a brow, skeptical. “There’s a higher calling for you than coin?”

Taemin scowls at him. “Yes, there is — Maker, you’re as bad as ever.” He flicks a stray piece of hair out of his face, then continues. “You remember how I was going to see Her Holiness when I left you two back north. I came to Haven. And while I was there, all this horrible stuff began, and the Inquisition started, and it felt like…” Taemin’s eyes light. “Providence, you know? I’ve had years to see Her Holiness, but I chose then. The same time she happened to be killed and the bastard’s responsible threw the world into chaos.  The Maker led me there for a reason.”

Jinki’s expression suddenly darkens. “And is it your Maker’s plan that called for the slaughter of my clan and brought me here?”

“Jinki…” Taemin frowns. “I didn’t say that.”

“Isn’t it implied? Or we just not part of his plan at all, as worthless heathen elves?”

Taemin fixes him with an icy stare. “No one is meaningless in the Maker’s heart.”

“Then the purpose of their deaths?”

“ _Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker’s will is written_ ,” Taemin quotes from memory. “This is true for elves and dwarfs and humans alike. The Maker often demands more than he gives to us.”

“And yet you worship a god who takes things from you with no explanation.” Jinki scowls. “At least the Dalish gods have a _reason_ for their inability to protect us—”

“Let’s not debate religion, please?” Jonghyun cuts him off when Taemin looks about to stand. “We’re here to drink and catch up. We’ve all had to deal with hardship to get here. Beliefs aren’t truly important right now, are they?”

Taemin slouches back and crosses his arms. “…I suppose not.”

Jinki takes a deep breath, then grasps his mug and nods over his drink.

With the tension gone, Jonghyun smiles at them both. “Good. I’ve been looking forward to hearing what Taemin’s been up to since he left.”

“A lot of the usual, but with less pay and more companionship.” Taemin winks at him. “Emphasis on the _companionship_.”

Jinki scoffs into his drink, but Taemin continues. “Andraste’s ass, let me figure out where to start…”

Jonghyun’s ears redden at the salacious details as Taemin recounts his first days in Haven, expertly mixing his bedroom exploits between a summary of the end of the war. Jinki’s hums of acknowledgement begin to drag on as he drains glass after glass of the cheap ale.

The flush on Jinki’s cheeks deepens, and Jonghyun watches him carefully. He’s done his best to keep Jinki away from liquor since their travels begun, fearful of what it might do to his mood so soon after his clan’s death.

But now, he regrets not letting Jinki drink sooner. For all his worries, Jinki seems to be happier. His eyes begin to slip closed, sometimes with mirth, and other times with sleepiness, whenever Taemin gets caught in in a conversation with a passerby that neither of them have met.

The scrape of Jinki’s chair against the wooden floor draws Jonghyun out of his eavesdropping. Jonghyun watches him out of the corner of his eye. They’re closer now, knees pressed together under the table, but Taemin doesn’t seem to notice when he turns back to continue his story.

“Anyway, where was I? I know you always judge me for sleeping with humans, Jinki, but this time it worked out well…”

Jonghyun loses track of the story when Jinki suddenly slumps against him. He glances down, half-afraid he’s unconscious, only to see his eyes are open and a small smile on his lips. His head shifts on Jonghyun’s shoulder until his ear is comfortable and uncrushed, and his arm falls onto Jonghyun’s leg to keep himself from slipping further down the chair.

“…so the night Haven was attacked, I realized I’d left my winter cloak in the cellar when I’d been looking at their wines. I might have died on the escape to this fortress of frostbite if I hadn’t gotten so friendly with that man before…”

Jonghyun’s tries not to react — he knows Jinki’s drunk, from the six empty mugs on the table — but when he looks down, Jinki smiles up at him, and Jonghyun can’t help but return it with his own.

Jinki’s _smiling_.

Jonghyun’s heart lifts.

Taemin stops suddenly, eyes widening in shock as he realizes how they’re positioned, and Jonghyun nearly laughs at how this must look: Jinki, slumped drunkenly over a man he’d barely been able to have a civil conversation with months prior.

He’d think that would raise a question or two, but Taemin only gives them a lopsided grin and laughs. “ _Maker_ , Jinki, you must be drunk.”

“Only a bit,” Jinki protests.

“If you’ve had enough to cling to a mage, you should probably stop drinking and head to bed. It’s late anyhow.” Taemin pulls a handful of coins of his pocket and deposits them on the table. “Do you need help getting him to his room, Jonghyun? I can’t say I’m in the soberest state myself.”

“I’ll take care of him, don’t worry.” Jonghyun pushes his chair back and stands. “You ready to go, Jinki?”

Jinki frowns, but nods. He stumbles when he stands, and Jonghyun scoops an arm under him quickly, ignoring the whine and the looks from the other humans in the tavern as he adjusts Jinki’s arm over his shoulder.

“I don’t know how we’re going to get you up to our room,” Jonghyun says. “I might have to bring the bedroll down to the storage barn.”

“I’m v’ good at climbing when drunk,” Jinki says, feet dragging with each step. “Climbed the Keeper’s aravel once. Climbed a few trees, too, even back in Tevinter when I wasn’t as good at it.”

Jonghyun only grunts in acknowledgement, too focused on trying to step them both safely over a patch of ice so Jinki’s weight doesn’t send them both falling into the snow. Usually, he liked that Jinki was all muscle, but now he has to wonder at the wisdom of letting someone so much stronger than him drink.

“You drinking in my cabin was never difficult. I didn’t have to drag you anywhere after,” Jonghyun complains to distract himself from the strain in his shoulder.

“I know. You’d just let me throw myself into the spare cot and sleep,” Jinki mumbles into his shoulder, voice lowering. “Unless I kissed you. Then you’d kiss back. I liked that.”

Jonghyun bites his lip and flushes, pretending not to have heard. He hadn’t expected _that_ part of Jinki getting drunk to stay the same.

When they finally reach the ladder, he eyes Jinki warily. “You’re sure you can make it up?”

Jinki nods. With surprising dexterity, he rushes up the ladder, hands and feet in perfect sync. There’s a small thud as he collapses into the attic, and Jonghyun follows up after him, unable to help a smile when he sees Jinki already lying flat over the bedroll.

“I’m taking off my robe,” Jonghyun warns.

Jinki’s head raises as he props himself on one elbow and turns to look.

Jonghyun pretends not to notice. He quickly folds his robe and rushes to their bedroll, helping Jinki slip inside and shuffling the blankets tighter around them for warmth.

The cold air that had been against his back suddenly warms when he feels a pair of lips on the back of his neck. A hand slips over his, and Jonghyun’s breath stutters, fingers tightening with interest despite his sense.

“Jinki…” He tries to compose himself, but it comes out as more of a plea. “You’re drunk. We don’t—”

“I just want to not think.” The short hair on the back of his neck is brushed aside so his lips can move smoothly over the skin. “And we were apart all day.”

Jonghyun shivers. That was true. It’d only been a morning and an afternoon, but that was the furthest Jinki had been apart from him in ages. And the thought that Jinki needed him, and that he could help…

He reaches a hand and places over Jinki’s cheek, knowing without looking that he’s running his thumb along the thick line that leads to the corner of his lips. “Alright.”

Jinki’s tongue darts out against his finger, and Jonghyun jolts, heart hammering in his chest. That was new. What it suggested had only happened once.

He tries to sit up to remove the last of his clothes, but Jinki stops him, placing a forearm across his stomach to pull his back to Jinki’s chest and cage him in. The ale on Jinki’s breathe wafts to him when he rests his head on his shoulder, but he doesn’t mind, because there’s already a hand slipping between his legs and into his smalls.

His back arches as Jinki strokes him until he’s fully hard. Behind him, he feels Jinki’s other hand shift. It takes him a moment — Jinki’s hand is so warm, and he keeps squeezing his fingers on every downstroke to make Jonghyun shake — but he realizes from the motions against his back that Jinki is palming himself through his breeches.

The knowledge changes the sensation already on him, making the pleasure of Jinki’s fist around him hotter and sharper until he’s biting against his knuckles to keep from whimpering.

“ _Ma vhenan_ ,” Jinki says, and it’s so tender, Jonghyun nearly loses himself then. All he can do is claw at the bedroll around them. The wood floor of the attic creaks under him when his legs begin to shake, and his head falls back, resting on Jinki’s shoulder as he thrusts gently up into his hand.

The rhythmic brush of the hand against his back picks up, then stills, and he feels Jinki exhale against him, hot and sharp. There’s a slight stickiness between them, but it’s gone before he can think to clean it, wiped way by the cloth Jinki had set their dinner on hours ago.

He lets Jinki pull them down to lay fully inside the bedroll. Jinki tugs at his shoulder until he turns.  A few kisses that smell of stale ale fall against his lips and jaw, and then Jinki stills, murmuring yet another phrase Jonghyun can’t understand before he’s slipping away into sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Two weeks of training passes by quickly. Jinki works with the Inquisition soldiers in the morning and afternoon, dines with Jonghyun, then joins Taemin at the tavern for a short while. The routine puts him on edge, and he finds himself more restless than he’d been on their travels. He’s used to being on the move, from the constant migration of his clan and his short journey south with Jonghyun.

But staying in the Inquisition fortress is a necessary sacrifice, and finding some way to get back at the Tevinter bastards that had hurt his clan is more important than his discomfort at being surrounded by _shems_.

He’s become a regular sight around the fortress, at least. He earns fewer stares, and only the murmured of insults of the human recruits that train with him remain inescapable. And those are ignored easily enough when they begin whatever drill they’ve been given.

Their training captain had dragged them to a small training ring covered with soft sand built for sparring after another morning of swords-and-shields practice.

“While it’s unlikely you will end up needing hand-to-hand techniques in the sorts of battles you’ll be in, it’s still essential to a well-rounded soldier’s training,” Minho informs them. “It builds strength, hones your reflexes, and teaches you to work with what you have.”

Someone kicks their foot against the heel of his boot.

“Hey, knife-ear — you’re pretty slight compared to most of us here, you know. You wanna back out now, so you won’t get hurt?”

Jinki crosses his arms tighter around himself and continues to stare ahead, ignoring the sliver of fear that speeds his pulse. There might be a threat underlying those words, but he wouldn’t let that scare him off. Not this soon.

The training captain claps his hands together to get their attention. “Now, I’ve talked enough. I want two people up here so we can teach you how to escape some common holds and use your body weight against your opponent.” He points to a large Orlesian man with neatly braided hair. “You’ll be our first demonstrator. And for the second…” He scans the crowd of recruits, then points to Jinki. “You will join him.”

Jinki doesn’t move. Though the training captain hadn’t treated him any differently from the other recruits, from what he could tell, surely he would never pick him as a volunteer when there were humans around.

But Minho only stares at him and motions for him to step forward. “Come on, get in the ring. It takes two people to demonstrate this exercise.”

Reluctantly, Jinki joins Minho and the Orlesian man in the ring.

“Alright. Good of you both to join me.” Minho nods at both of them, then focuses on the Orlesian. “Now, I’m going to demonstrate a way to get out of a basic wrist hold. If you could grasp your partner’s wrist.”

Jinki flinches when the man immediately grips him as instructed. He blinks down at the large fingers around him and bites back a protest — that would mean showing weakness in front of the _shems_.

The Orlesian grins at him and squeezes his wrist tighter as Minho explains how to escape the hold by lowering his stance and bringing his elbow towards his assailant.  The motion comes to him easily, and he pulls his arm back as quick as he can once breaking the hold. Hopefully, the man hadn’t felt his fear in his pulse.

Minho praises their work, then moves onto another few exercises, showing them how to use their opponent’s mass and twist a hold to their advantage. Jinki commits the motions to memory as best he can in the short time.

“Alright, now let’s see you implement these techniques.” Minho steps back, leaving them alone in the ring. “Again, this is only an exercise in effectively using your opponent’s strength against them, and escape any holds they may have on you. Any punches or kicks, and I’ll have to reprimand you. Start on my word.”

The Orlesian scowls at him from the other end of the ring, but nods. Jinki rolls out his shoulders and lowers his stance, trying not to show any wariness.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Minho nod.

“Begin!”

Jinki steps left when the man immediately lunges forward. His reach is longer than Jinki accounted for, and he manages to grasp his right wrist.

Swearing, Jinki couches and pushes his elbow forward as he’d just been taught, breaking the hold quickly to escape to the other end of the ring. The wrist the man had grasped feels foreign to him from the echo of the hold, but he forces himself to refocus.

Behind him, the captain claps once. “Good escape, recruit. Keep it up.”

Jinki turns back to his opponent. His blood pounds in his ears loud enough that he nearly misses the jeer from across the ring.

“Careful, don’t let him bite you! I heard the knife-ears from the north started some kind of plague.”

“Soldier! What did I say about language?!”

Jinki flinches, guard falling when his ears twitch back to the captain.

The distraction seems to be what his sparring partner was waiting for. He closes the distance between them quickly, long arms reaching out for his neck. Jinki ducks to avoid the grab, only to cry out in pain when the man grabs a fistful of his hair instead. Ignoring the pain, he steps backward, mind a blur of anything but the need to get away. His boot catches on the compacted snow that marks the edge of the ring, and he stumbles, unable to right himself before a sweep of the man’s leg knocks him off his feet.

The air in his lungs comes out in a sharp rasp. A dim part of him registers that the move shouldn’t have been allowed, but the rules obviously didn’t matter. He rolls to the side, trying to get back up, and is stopped by the kick of a spectating _shem_ to his shoulder _._ He grabs the stranger’s foot and tries to stand, but the man he’d been sparring with stops him quickly. 

A large hand pushes on his back, and Jinki’s mind blanks, hand instantly going lax around the other man’s ankle. A bed and silk robes flash behind his eyes, and his awareness of his surroundings vanishes as his cry from a second kick sticks in his throat.

Blind with panic, he flails out with his legs, trying to find some target that will force the man off of him.

His kicks are weak, and when he tries to reach backwards, the man takes advantage of his struggling to grab his hand and yank it behind his back.

Jinki freezes. His body goes limp, entirely compliant with the weight bearing down on him, and there’s a laugh and a small chorus of cheers when the _shems_ see his struggles have ceased.

Something is being said — knife-ear, halla rider, rabbit — but it all sounds like a roaring blur.

His body jars with a sudden impact. There’s a grunt of pain from above him, and then the weight is off him.

He raises himself up onto his elbows and spits out a mouthful of sand and snow. There’s air around him now, crisp and cold, and he could breathe it in if he’d just remember how. His fingers remain rigid in the sand as he tries to inhale past the tightness in his chest.

From the corner of his eye, he sees that the man that had pinned him is clutching his face in pain. There’s blood in the snow, and the crowd has backed away save the pair of armored legs next to him.

He’s still on his knees, still in the training ring, and his heart races is as if he were still pinned. He doesn’t dare to move until he’s sure that staying still won’t prevent something worse.

“…Are you alright?”

The deep voice makes him flinch. He forces himself to look up, squinting against the sun to see the training captain watching him with concern.

A hand is offered to him, and Jinki surprises them both when he knocks it away.

“I’m fine,” Jinki snaps. He dusts off his trembling hands and stands. His cheeks burn from where they had rubbed against the sand of the ring. He’s certain the spectating _shems_ read the redness as a mark of his humiliation, though he doesn’t feel it yet — he’s too far outside himself to feel anything but the last thrums of adrenaline.

The captain eyes him skeptically, brow furrowed in concern, but finally turns to the crowd when Jinki remains silent.

“Training’s off for the morning, so be on your way. We’ll meet back here in the afternoon. As for _you_ lot—” he points to Jinki’s sparring partner with the bloodied nose and a man Jinki recognizes as one of the _shems_ that cursed him under their breath  ”—I will speak with you shortly. Go wait in the commander’s office for now. You’re to have no contact with anyone until I arrive.”

The men scowl, about to protest, but the approach of the tall weathered woman that sometimes assisted the captain in training seems to change their minds. She leads them away, and he watches them with a stern expression until they enter the guards’ barracks.

His eyes soften when he turns to Jinki. “Do you have a moment? I’d like to speak with you as well.”

Jinki looks around, almost certain the man must be talking to someone else. But the other _shems_ are already shuffling off, probably pleased that the incident had gotten them out of morning training, which leaves him alone with the training captain.

He puts room between them before answering. “I have time.”

“Forgive me, I don’t believe I’ve gotten your name…” the captain clears his throat. “But you may call me by mine. Are you uninjured?”

“Jinki.” He eyes Minho warily, distrustful of the offer of informality. “And I’m fine.”

“Are you certain? If you’re injured, you should see the healers—”

“I don’t need a healer,” Jinki snarls. With the immediate threat gone, his anger at himself for acting so helpless and the bastard _shem_ that had pinned him boils over to the captain in front of him. “And what’s it matter to you? You have other soldiers.”

“I wouldn’t want a determined recruit to quit because of a few rude ones,” he says, as if it were that simple. “You obviously have a bit of combat training already, and that’s more valuable than you can imagine, when we’re so low on resources. I’m not going to let them run you off if I can help it.”

Jinki blinks, surprise quelling his temper. He hadn’t expected any human to address him with any manner of respect. Certainly not so soon after having his head shoved into the ground by one of them.

His silence draws another look of concern. “…Are you sure you’re alright? If you hit your head, you should—”

“Yes,” Jinki cuts him off. “I am used to far worse from _shems_. And I don’t need your worry.  I can deal with any issues that arise from being Dalish myself.”

“I understand, I won’t get involved in any personal business of yours,” Minho says. “But I won’t allow any infighting. I don’t allow slurs — and that goes for _shem_ as well as knife-ear — in the training yards. That’s a requirement I hold of everyone.” He leans back, and Jinki has to admire his attempt at fairness, even if it means he’s earning a reprimand himself. “Will you accept that?”

Jinki narrows his eyes, but nods. “That’s fair.”

“I try to be. It’s what the Order should stand for.”

“The Order…?” Jinki asks.

The captain gestures to his tunic, and Jinki looks down in surprise. Somehow, he hadn’t noticed the emblem of a flaming sword stitched into the man’s tunic. Suddenly, it becomes obvious why the mages that walked freely through the rest of the fortress gave the training courtyard a wide berth.

“You’re a templar?”

“Yes.” Minho rubs his jaw and sighs. “Does that bother you?”

“You’re the first southern Templar I’ve met,” Jinki confesses. He decides to leave out a mention of his apostate lover. “So I can’t say it’s a personal discomfort. But I have heard some things about the templars, from the few mages I’m…” he racks his mind for a way to refer to Jonghyun. “…acquainted with. They say the Circles were prisons, and the templars were their jailers.”

Minho smiles wryly.  “A good number of mages would agree with that. But so would I, in some cases.”

At that, Jinki frowns. All Jonghyun had told him of templars is that they were cruel and power-hungry, dedicated entirely to keeping mages leashed in the Circles and killing those who refused to live within them.

Yet, this templar seemed to agree.

“I don’t understand,” he admits. “You’re a templar, but you think mages should be free?”

“ _Free_ is a strong word,” Minho says with a wave of his hand. “Freedom didn’t work after the Circles were disbanded. Some of the chaos was from the war between the templars and the mages, but much of it was from mages gone mad. I saw more demons and blood magic in those months than I saw in my time at Ostwick Circle. I imagine something of a compromise between what the mages desire and what the world needs to stay safe from their power.”

“I can’t imagine how that compromise would work.”

“It’d be a difficult one to reach,” Minho acknowledges. “But I believe — as do some mages — that the Circles should remain. They just need to be reformed. The Order is supposed to be fair, as I mentioned, and too many templars have forgotten that. The mages were in our custody so that we could protect them from what magic does to themselves, as well as what it could do to those born without those abilities.”

Jinki blinks. He’d never considered anything like that before. It’d always seemed so black and white, to him, with how Jonghyun had framed it — Circles were slavery, and being an apostate was his freedom.

The silence he leaves doesn’t diminish Minho’s seriousness, and he realizes with a start that Minho is waiting for his response.

“Perhaps that would work. But no mage would ever agree to it.”

“Some would, I think, for the sake of everyone’s safety.  Some mages are good, but many of them want power…” He trails off, then sighs deeply. “I fear that without the Circles and templars to reign mages in, the south may turn into another Tevinter.”

“I should hope not,” Jinki says. His fingers tense against his crossed arms. Somehow, he’d never thought of what the long-term consequences of mage freedom might be. “I lived there, before I escaped to the Dalish — it isn’t a good place for those without magic.”

He regrets the admission immediately.

Minho’s eyes widen, and Jinki can tell he’s putting the pieces together — escaped elf, Tevinter, former _slave_ — and braces himself for the pity or disgust everyone but a few of his clan expressed when learning of his former life.

But Minho says nothing of it. He only gives a solemn nod, as if Jinki being a former slave was nothing more than a passing comment, before returning to their discussion.

“I can imagine it wasn’t kind to you. From what I’ve heard, it’s a Maker-forsaken land, filled with blood mages and abominations. The templars are meant to stop that, as are the Circles.”

Jinki pauses, thinking it over. The templar emblem on Minho’s tunic seems less damning now, and he finds himself agreeing.  “Having experienced Tevinter…I think I agree that something needs to be done to keep mages from using their power for ill. So long as the templars do not abuse that.”

Minho nods, determined. “I’m hoping I can prevent that, if — or hopefully, when — the Circles are remade.”

“I will hope for that as well.”

Minho smiles broadly, and he claps Jinki’s shoulder without hesitation. “Well! I’ve been going on long enough, haven’t I? I can’t say I expected to have a conversation like this with the Dalish elf so many people are afraid of, but I enjoyed it.”

Jinki tries to return the smile, if only because Minho had been the first to say the name for his people without it sounding like a curse.

“Speaking of you being Dalish…I’m interested in hearing about what you learned from them, if you’d be willing to share. Perhaps they have techniques we should be emulating.”

“I’m not sure I have much knowledge to give, but I would be willing to share.”

“Great,” Minho says. “We could discuss it over lunch sometime — I tend to take my meals in the training yard. I understand you probably wish to avoid the mess hall.”

“That works,” Jinki agrees.

Minho pats his shoulder once more before bidding him farewell and heading for the guard barracks.

Jinki watches him leave. With Taemin busy making maps and reading scout reports, and Jonghyun holed up with the mages, it would be good to have someone to speak with, and Minho seemed unthreatening enough. So far, his time alone in the fortress has been spent either looking over his shoulder for fear of the _shems_ deciding he was unwanted, or drifting back to memories of his clan.

Better to deal with an overly friendly human than that.

***

The pillar of magic flames climbs upwards, twisting in spirals under Jonghyun’s ministrations. He’s no longer sure if the sweat collected on his brow is from the heat or the effort of pulling his magic from the Fade. When the fire reaches the stone ceiling of the practice room, Jonghyun slowly lowers his hands to bring it back to the floor, then dissipates it with a small wave.

Soojung grins at him from across the room. She points proudly at the scorch mark left between them on the stone floor. “I _told_ you fire was your thing.”

“Well, I always worked with it, for cooking and heating tea and things,” Jonghyun says. He shakes out his hands to rid them of the magic still tingling in his palm and wipes the sweat from his forehead. “Just never thought to make pillars out of it. Seemed excessive.”

“Well, it’s useful to, whether you’re on the offensive or defensive. Most enemies won’t want to walk through something blazing from the ground.” She paces. “Now, see if you can’t summon a similar column of ice.”

Jonghyun groans. “Do we have to?”

“You need to know ice as well as fire if you want to master the primal school, Jonghyun.” She crosses her arms and sighs, every inch of her the unforgiving teacher. “You can’t skimp on things like this.”

So far, he’d only managed to grasp some of the complex and powerful spells Soojung had been teaching him by visualizing the glyphs for the associated spell in his head. The glyphs related to ice always seemed to escape his grasp. He closes his eyes to concentrate, only to come up with a blurry picture of what he needs to summon the amount of ice required for the spell.

Nothing happens when he sends his magic forward, and out of desperation, he tries to work purely on the image of an ice manifesting in front of him. Magic flows out through his fingertips, chilly and sharp, and he has a brief moment of elation at his success when he sees the stone floor in front of him glows blue.

From the scorch march on the stone, a small spike of ice spears up. It barely reaches the height of his knee.

Soojung snorts. “…Really?”

“I told you I only made small amounts of ice to keep food preserved or cool my drinks,” Jonghyun glowers at her. “Not all of us the cold-hearted nature necessary for ice magic..”

“Alright, alright.” She rolls her eyes. “Be nice to your teacher, please. I’ll go over the theory and glyphs with you once more.”

Soojung pats the desk next to her. Jonghyun takes a seat and drags one of the tomes on ice theory towards him. It’s a basic text, reviewing the most common motions and glyphs that mages use to summon frost from the Fade, and he puts his best effort into absorbing the material on the pages Soojung had marked for him.

His focus starts fading when he stumbles on a brief mention of Dalish magic.

Automatically, his mind drifts to Jinki, and a flush blooms on his cheeks. Their last night together had been so different. Tender and slow, like it had been sometimes before Jinki’s clan was killed. And that elven phrase was back again — _ma vhenan_. The one Jinki claimed was a way to call him short, but said with enough affection to make Jonghyun’s ears burn.

He shakes his head, trying to pull himself out of those thoughts and back to his book.

He needs to learn this. His ice magic is weak.

After another few moments without progress, he gives in.

Jonghyun puts down his book and looks at the elven woman across from him.  "Soojung?“  
  
She looks up from her parchment. "Hm?”  
  
“Can I ask you something? About the elven language? If I remember right, you were studying it before I escaped.”  
  
“I was,” she says, leaning back to eye him curiously. “But you know most of the language has been lost — it’s not a full language anymore. Not even among the Dalish.”  
  
“I know. But you understand some of it, right?”

“Yeah, I did,” she says. “What’s your question?”  
  
Jonghyun fidgets. “What does _ma vhenan_ mean?”  
  
“ _Ma vhenan?_ ” Soojung repeats. Her lips pull into wide grin when Jonghyun nods.  "I’d think if someone were close enough to call you _that,_ they’d be willing to tell you what it means.“  
  
Impatient, he flicks at her arm. “Well, I don’t know what it means. And I never said anyone called me that. Can you just answer the question?”

“Fine, fine.” She huffs. “It means “my heart.” Some people think it means my home, too, but either way — it’s definitely a term of endearment for lovers.”

Jonghyun looks down back at his book.

“Ah.”

That answered that question. He’d suspected Jinki had been lying, from how embarrassed he’d been when Jonghyun asked, but he assumed it’d still be a light-hearted nickname. Something related to deer, or flowers, or some other meaningless romantic object that didn’t seem to translate so directly to _love_.

Soojung blocks his book when she leans towards him. “Your question…is this about that Dalish man you came to Skyhold with?”

Jonghyun reddens. “How’d you know about him?”

“There’s not exactly many Dalish men here,” she says. “And I keep up on the gossip. A new mage in the fortress walking around with a Dalish elf is going to raise some eyebrows.”

He sighs. “I suppose I should’ve expected that.”

“So he calls you that, but he never told you what it means?” She asks. “That seems…strange, to be honest.”

Jonghyun smiles sadly. “He’s not very forthcoming with his feelings.”

“It’s hard for me to imagine you with someone like that, since you’re such an open book.”

“I am not an open book,” he protests. Soojung just raises a brow at him, and he sighs. “And even if I am, it works out well. We have a lot in common.”

“Oh?” That seems to interest her. “Is he a mage, too? I know the Dalish let them live freely.”

Jonghyun can’t help his bitter laugh. “No, he’s not a mage. Far from it. He doesn’t like mages, for the most part, or magic.”

“…yet you’re in love with him?”

“I never said that.” He can feel his cheeks turning pink. “We’ve only been…whatever it is we are for a few months. I wouldn’t fall for someone so easily.”

“I can imagine you would, if the man is handsome enough,” she teases, a broad grin on her lips when she nudges him. “And besides, he seems to feel that way about you, _ma vhenan._ ”

He shivers. “Please, don’t _ever_ call me that. It feels wrong.”

She laughs. “Alright. But really, I’m curious about all this — you never mentioned a lover when you talked about what you’ve been up to. How did you even meet someone Dalish? And why doesn’t he like mages?”

Jonghyun pushes his book away, then pinches his brow as he tries to decide where to start. It would take a long time to explain everything.

***

For the afternoon, the tavern is crowded. The snow had sent nearly everyone inside, and even Minho — who, Jinki had learned, loved the cold in true Ferelden fashion — had decided to have their lunch somewhere warm liquor could easily be found.

Through the window on the other end of the building, he can see snow drifts building around the stables and training yard against the best attempts of the soldiers to stop them.  Jinki takes a seat in furthest corner and waits for Minho to join him.

Somehow, lunch with the training captain had become a regular routine.

For a _shem_ , he’s easy to talk to. The man is honorable to a fault and seems to measure everyone only by their willingness to work, which meant Jinki’s Dalishness is only a mild point of interest.

And as a result of his association with the training captain — and the punishment handed down to the Orlesian man that had pinned him in the sparring ring — there were no more slurs thrown at him during training, not openly enough for Minho to notice. There was still hostility, of course. He could sense it behind every blow when he sparred with the human recruits, even if they no longer attempted to sneak in an attack that would break a bone.

Which meant that today, when they’d attempted hand-to-hand training again, no one had tried to hurt him. But the moment his sparring partner had grabbed him, he’d reacted the same as he had with the man that’d tried to hurt him — panic, then flailing to get away, then freezing entirely.

It’d been humiliating. Every other exercise, he could best most of the _shems_ , and yet when it came to this, he was useless. With a sword or a bow or a knife, he felt sure of his ability to protect himself. But the moment he had to face someone without either…

He felt like a boy in Tevinter again.

“Jinki!”

Jinki looks up from the table to see Minho carrying two bowls full of hot stew towards him. He sets them down on the table, and Jinki stares at the odd mish-mash of meat and vegetables. It should be appetizing, after a hard morning’s work, but it was so far off from anything Tevinter or Dalish or Jonghyun-cooked..

“I brought this from the mess hall. I heard they had lamb and pea stew. I haven’t had that in months.”

Jinki takes one of the bowls, and after a moment of hesitance, picks up his spoon.

“Thank you.”

Like most Ferelden food, it was bland, spiced only in the barest amounts to make the components of the dish palatable. Minho seemed to enjoy it, though, enough for his usual chatty nature to be pushed aside in favor of consuming the stew as fast as humanly possible.

It leaves Jinki with no distractions from the morning’s exercise, and before he can help it, his mind is back on the sparring ring and he’s frowning at the memory of his humiliating defeat.

Minho taps his bowl until he has Jinki’s attention. Jinki’d learned over the past weeks that Minho had a tendency to pry, so when he sees the concerned look in the templar’s eyes, Jinki already knows what he’ll ask.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes.”

Minho stares at him, measuring Jinki’s hostility to discussion before continuing.

“You know, I had a good talking to with those men that tried to attack you the first time we did hand-to-hand practice. I put them on latrine duty and removed them from training until they can show they’ll behave themselves, as well, and made sure everyone knew it. You won’t be seeing them for a while, and I doubt anyone will try to pull what they did after the punishment they got.”

Unsure what Minho wants from him, Jinki takes another spoonful of his stew and waits.

“I thought I should tell you that to try and reassure you it won’t happen again.” Minho clears his throat. “I couldn’t help but notice that you froze again, during the hand-to-hand training today. It’s a hard instinct to learn to fight, but if you would like, I could help—”

“No.” Jinki cuts him off. “I would rather skip that part training, if it’s a problem.”

“I can’t let any soldier skip a part of training,” Minho protests. “And I’d hate to see you frightened like that again and again, especially when you might need those skills in the field. Though, to be frank, this might be the only area I’ve seen you struggle in…is it because of what happened that first day, or is there something that makes you want to avoid it?”

Jinki glares. “I have no wish to talk about this.”

“Right.” Minho closes his mouth and scrapes his spoon against the bottom of his bowl. “…My apologies.”

The silence flounders. A server deposits two tankards of ale in front of them. Jinki takes his quickly, wanting the buzz to forget the conversation. As Minho sips on his own, his eyes travel around the tavern until they rest on a piece of parchment fixed to the wall.

“Well, it looks like there’s an archery contest coming up,” he says, in a clear attempt to change the subject to something of Jinki’s interest. “Would you like to enter it?”

“What?” Jinki raises a brow. “You think because I’m Dalish, I’m automatically good at archery?”

“No, I—” Minho sputters. “I wasn’t trying to imply that, I only—”

“You’d be right.” Jinki cuts him off with a cocky smile. “Perhaps I will enter, provided it won’t draw me more negative attention. I should like to show the _shems_ proper archery.”

Minho’s shakes his head briefly at _shems_ , but doesn’t comment on it. He knows better than to try and contain Jinki’s language outside of the training yard.

“I should think it’d earn you more respect. Though they’re reluctant to admit it openly, most of the guards and templars I work with have noticed you’re one of our best recruits lately.”

Jinki scoffs into his drink. “That won’t keep them from abandoning me in the field.”

Minho frowns. “I understand you don’t want to work as a foot soldier with so many humans — and I admit it might not be the safest position for you — but those are the main duties we need filled now. Though if I find another assignment for you, I’ll be sure to pass it along.”

Jinki nods, indifferent. It matters little where he’s assigned, so long as he’s able to contribute to stopping the efforts of that Tevinter cult in the south.

The sudden clang of Minho’s spoon falling in his bowl makes Jinki look up. “Actually, I might have an idea for an assignment for you. How would you feel about scouting? You’d likely be working with humans, but—”

A familiar warm voice interrupts Minho’s speech. “I didn’t realize you took lunch here, Jinki.”

Jinki stiffens when he sees Jonghyun approaching them, suddenly conscious of the fact that he’s sitting across from a templar.

“Only here today because the snow brought us inside.”

“Yes, it’s snowing a lot, isn’t it?” Jonghyun stops at the end of their table. “I normally don’t eat here either, but I thought I’d try it today. Someone tried mixing deathroot into a healing potion and the whole mage tower stinks. Truly, I can’t imagine why…” His focus shifts away from Jinki, and his eyes freeze on the emblem on Minho’s chest. He glances between Minho and Jinki, expression darkening when he sees the bread split between them. “You’re…”

“Jinki’s training captain.” Minho stands, oblivious to the change in mood, and introduces himself with a friendly smile. He holds out his hand. “But you may call me Minho. I don’t think it’s proper to use titles in the tavern.”

“…Yes, that would be odd.” Jonghyun answers slowly. He eyes Minho’s hand warily before taking it, then pulls his own back as soon as he can. “I’m Jonghyun.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” Minho sits, and Jonghyun slips into the seat next to Jinki. “I didn’t realize Jinki knew anyone else in the Inquisition. Are you new here as well?”

“Yes.” His lips tighten. “We arrived here together around a month ago.”

“Oh.” Minho blinks, unsure what to do with the information. “Were you from a Circle near his clan, or…?”

“No. I _escaped_ the Ostwick Circle years ago,” Jonghyun says, putting emphasis on the word as he leans back in his seat. “I haven’t been there since I was sixteen.”

“…I see.”

Minho says nothing more. Jinki glances at the table, where Jonghyun’s hands have a severe grip on the edge. If it weren’t for the defiant lift of his chin, he would think Jonghyun was scared.

“I didn’t realize the Inquisition had templars,” Jonghyun comments. “I’d heard they allied with the mages in the war.”

“Not all templars agreed with the war,” Minho says. “And when the Circles disbanded, the Order split as well. Some of us joined the Inquisition even before the war ended.”

“To keep an eye on any mages in it, I assume?”

“I joined because it’s the right thing to do.” He nods to Jinki, then picks up his plate and stands. “But I think I should go, Jinki. I believe I’m making your friend uncomfortable.”

Jonghyun’s gaze remains fixed on the emblem on Minho’s chest, and he makes no move to protest the statement.

The change from Jonghyun’s usual warm demeanor leaves Jinki unsure of what to say. He bids Minho a murmured farewell, then glances sidelong at Jonghyun. Tension rolls off him in waves. Jinki’s skin prickles with the beginnings of resentment.

Why did Jonghyun have to act like that towards Minho? He’d been nothing but polite, and it wasn’t as if he were going to drag Jonghyun back to a nonexistent Circle. None of the mages wandering around the fortress had even the slightest restriction on their new freedom.

The activity of the tavern picks up around them, and Jonghyun suddenly stands and tightens his cloak with trembling hands. “I don’t have an appetite anymore. I’m going back to our room.”

“I’m come with.” Jinki leaves his bowl on the table and follows him outside.

The crisp cold in the yards of Skyhold does nothing to dull the tension between them. Jonghyun’s steps are hurried, forcing Jinki into a near job, and his breath hits the air in a white cloud when he finally speaks at the doorway to the storage barn.

“So that was the man you mentioned drinking with a few days ago.” His voice is quiet, but the accusation is still there, and the crease of anger in Jonghyun’s brow only deepens when Jinki shrugs. “You didn’t tell me his name or his title.”

“I didn’t realize you’d be bothered.”

“And I didn’t realize he was a _templar!”_ Jonghyun snaps. “This is why you asked me about the Circle last night, isn’t it? He’s feeding you things to believe, and you’re testing it against what I’ve experienced.”

Jinki bristles. “I can form my own opinions.”

“And how better to form them than to listen to the bastards that would hunt me down and kill me if the war hadn’t already ended, right?”

“Mages that don’t fight were brought back alive after their first escape, from what I’ve heard. For other’s protection and for their own.”

Jonghyun snarls, a rage Jinki’s never seen before distorting his features. “Brought back alive to a _prison_.”

“I’m not saying I want mages imprisoned as an end to itself.” Jinki holds up his hands. “I might have wanted that once, but that’s not what I want, or what the Circles are about either. It’s about keeping everyone without magic safe from the power hungry.”

“So because a few of us would use our magic for ill, you would lock us all up?”

“What other option do is there? To keep the south from turning into another Tevinter?” Jinki crosses his arms, sure of his victory when Jonghyun only answers him with silence. “If there’s a better solution, I haven’t seen it. I’ve seen too much evil come from magic to think the templars or their Circles are entirely wrong.”

“So you would want me locked up in a Circle, with the templars keeping me there…” Hurt flashes across Jonghyun’s eyes. He leashes it in quickly, and his expression goes cold when he looks up at Jinki. “Did you know that the templars watched us every time we bathed?”

Jinki swallows. The humiliation of that is too familiar. “Jonghyun, I—”

“Did you know they made some of us Tranquil — took away our magic and our ability to have our own _feelings_ , our own desires  — just for trying to leave? Or for reading the wrong books? Or for asking why our friends disappeared in the middle of the night?” Jonghyun steps forward, and Jinki retreats, too caught off guard by the heat of his anger to hold onto his stubbornness. “We couldn’t see our families, once we were taken to the Circle, you know. We couldn’t talk to them — only those from noble backgrounds managed to sneak letters by the templars. And we couldn’t make new families, either, or have partners, or even have quiet conversations with our _friends_ unless we wanted to be interrogated on suspicion of blood magic.”

The room seems colder when Jonghyun finishes. His hands shake by his side, and Jinki inhales sharply, fighting the instinct to take them before he continues. “I’m not saying that was right. I don’t agree with all of how you were treated, I just think mages should be—”

“Don’t,” Jonghyun snaps. “I don’t want to hear anymore of it. If you support the Circles, you’re supporting that.”

Jinki grits his teeth, but quiets.

Jonghyun stares him down. From the challenging glint in his eye, it’s clear that he expected another rebuttal, and the silence Jinki gives him only seems to agitate him more.

With none of the usual warning he gives, he turns to the wall and begins to strip out of his outer clothes. “I’m going to rest. Maker knows I need it.”

For a moment, Jinki watches him undress, heart still pounding from the heat of their argument. He doesn’t have it in him to argue that it’s only the afternoon, or ask if Jonghyun would still be there for their usual evening drink in the tavern with Taemin, not when it’s clear that Jonghyun was entirely done with their conversation.

His feet carry him to the ladder leading to the storage barn below, and out of habit, he grabs his bow and his knife before climbing down.

At the last rung, he stops, suddenly unsure what to do with himself.

He’d never seen Jonghyun so incised, not since he’d wrongly accused the mage of using blood magic on Taemin. And even that had ended with Jonghyun reaching out to him, after Taemin made sure they wouldn’t hurt each other.

He looks up one last time, half-expecting to see Jonghyun looking for him, then pushes away from the ladder with a sigh.

Returning to their room isn’t an option. What was the point, when Jonghyun wouldn’t even let him finish a thought?

Frustrated, he pulls his bow off his back and strings it. Shooting will take his mind off of the argument, but on the way to the archery range, he loops back through it over and over.

He doesn’t want mages imprisoned just for being born with magic, as Jonghyun seemed to think he desired. He only wants everyone else to be safe, and the Circles that Jonghyun hated were simply a means to that end.

***

The long exhale as Jinki releases his bow string leaves a broad cloud of white in the air.

For the first time that night, his arrow hits the target dead center, but the elation he should feel is diminished by the ache in his chest.

All that means is that he should keep going.

He shakes out his hand before reaching back for another arrow. Shooting in the cold had taken some adjustment — he wasn’t used to having both his hands fully gloved or having to suppress a shiver at every gust of wind — but he’s improved. Enough that the whispers about the tattooed knife-ear came with a touch of envy now, instead of just disdain.

The corner of Jinki’s lip tilts up when he catches someone glaring at him as he knocks his arrow. At least if he has to put up with being in a fortress full of _shems_ , he’d found a way to piss them off.

“Hold up, Jinki!”

Jinki turns to the noise with furrowed brows. When he turns to the voice, he sees Taemin running towards, cheeks red with exertion. He skids to a stop in the snow, sending puff flying over Jinki’s boots.

“Considering you’re one of two Dalish elves in the whole fortress, it shouldn’t be so damned hard to find you.” Taemin huffs, hair flopping over his face when he leaning on his knees to catch his breath. “I’ve been looking for you for an hour now. One of the Inquisition’s agents wants to speak with us about an assignment.”

Jinki lowers his bow. He remembered Minho mentioning finding something else, but this seemed too soon. “What kind of assignment?”

Taemin shrugs. “They weren’t that specific, just said it was some kind of scouting mission. We’ll get a briefing from the spymaster’s people.”

Jinki pauses for a moment before agreeing. “Alright. And you’d be coming with?”

“Sounds like it,” Taemin says. “Probably just want more details on an area they already have mapped out or something.”

Jinki listens to Taemin’s speculation without comment and lets him lead the way. They circle around the training yards towards the center of the fortress, then climb the open stairs to the imposing tower that where the higher-ranking officers and agents take residence.

He’s done his best to avoid this part of the Inquisition for precisely that reason. Like most organizations, the higher ranks are packed with nobles, and Jinki bristles at the displays of opulence in the silk gowns and tunics that separate every one of them from the serving staff and soldiers that file through. A gossiping group of them gasps openly at his _vallaslin_ , their disgust and fascination — which, Jinki doesn’t care to learn — hidden behind the masks Jinki recognizes as belonging to Orlesian nobles.

Taemin glares at them and grabs Jinki’s sleeve to hurry him. “C’mon. The agent’s room should be just down the hall.”

Jinki follows him to door at the end. Taemin raps his knuckles against the wood twice before opening it, then blinks in surprise.

The room is decorated finer than any Jinki’s seen since his life at the magister’s estate. A window framed by embroidered curtains marks the west side of the room, allowing the last bit of sun through the glass. Besides it, a man with perfectly coiffed hair sits behind a desk with ornate carvings that wrap smoothly around all four of its legs.

Normally, Jinki would inspect the craftsmanship of the woodwork to keep from having to look the noble in the eye, but he finds no need—

Jonghyun’s presence in front of the desk distracts him enough.

He offers only a shy nod of acknowledgment, and his hands remain poised politely over his lap when Jinki steps inside with Taemin.

“Wonderful. It looks like everyone is here.” The man behind the desk stands from his seat to greet them with a flourished bow and a curled smile.“ My name is Kibum, Comte de Val Foret, and creator and owner of its most famous — or infamous — Trading Company of Fine Fabrics and Wares. It’s a pleasure to meet you all. I’ve heard good things of you. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

Jinki’s ears twitch from the effort of trying to understand the man through his thick Orlesian accent, but he follows Taemin’s lead and sits in the last remaining chair.

His eyes move over the three of them, resting on each of them for a pause in acknowledgement. As Jinki expects, the gaze lingers on him, shifting from cheek to forehead to nose in the pattern he recognizes from every time a _shem_ has decided to inspect his _vallaslin_.

Lifting his chin, Jinki stares back at him, refusing to let the inspection go unreturned. Though Kibum is broad-shouldered and strong-legged, it’s clear from the smoothness of his hands and the lack of wear on his clothes that he had never seen battle or labor first hand. His deep red tunic is smooth silk, tailored to a perfect fit and trimmed with a bright gold that nearly glows from the window’s light.

Either ignorant or uncaring of their silent match, Taemin breaks the silence with a tap of the desk.

“I thought you were one of the fabric merchants from Orlais, not an agent of the Inquisition. You’re working for the spymaster?”

“Doesn’t _everyone_ work for our spymaster?” He raises a brow, a confident smile on his lips as he settles back into his plush chair. “But yes, I am a fabric merchant — as well as an Inquisition agent. Hard to limit myself to trading and bartering when I can take a position handling information and money for one of the most influential organizations in the world.”

Jinki suppresses a scowl. Of course — a _shem_ after power. He could see this man doing well in Tevinter.

“Enough about me, though. We won’t be working together closely, so my motivations are irrelevant. All you need to know is that your task comes from the top, and will utilize all of your skills perfectly.”

“So what is it?” Taemin asks, impatient.

“Nothing too intensive, since two of you are new.” He nods to Jinki and Jonghyun, then unfurls a rolled piece of parchment on his desk to reveal a map. He taps an empty stretch of land in the west of Orlais labelled _The Western Approach_.

“This is both a scouting _and_ an intelligence mission of sorts. The Inquisition has already cleared most of the Venatori from the area, as well as established a keep, so we don’t need you to do any fighting.  What we need is for someone to search through any notes left behind in the Venatori camps, and map out any Tevinter ruins and other things that may be of interest to their cult. Since two of you speak Tevene, we thought you would be the most suited to determine what’s important and what can be left behind.”

The name of the Tevinter cult stabs through Jinki’s gut like a knife. He clutches the arm of his chair, reluctance to speak is forgotten. “So there will be Venatori there?”

Kibum blinks once, then shrugs. “It’s possible you may run into some stragglers. But as I said, we’re not asking you to try and take care of them — only find why Tevinter was so interested in the area originally. With only three of you, it should be fairly easy to avoid detection if any of them remain. And Maker forbid, if you _are_ forced into combat, my partner has told me Jinki is a fine warrior. He recommended him for this assignment.”

Taemin tilts his head, plainly confused at the idea of someone knowing Jinki well enough to judge his skill. “Your partner…knows Jinki?”

“Yes. He’s his training captain.”

Still skeptical, Taemin looks to him for confirmation, and Jinki is forced to nod in acknowledgement.

This must’ve been the scouting assignment Minho thought would suit him. And he’d arranged for it to happen through his…partner. He narrows his eyes at the smiling man across the desk. He’s not certain if his high opinion of Minho’s character has fallen, or if his judgement of this _shem_ noble should rise.

“Okay. So Jinki can protect us if need be, I’ll be making the maps, and we both speak Tevene…” Taemin thinks aloud. “But why’d you ask me to bring Jonghyun here, too? Will we need a mage for some ancient Tevinter ruins or something?”

“No, we won’t be asking you to delve into the ruins deeply.” Kibum waves a hand. “Our spymaster keeps an eye on all new recruits. She knows that you’re friends with Jonghyun, and that he and Jinki are… _close._ ” He pauses to trail over the desk in a suggestive circle, not bothering to conceal his delight at having that information.

Jinki squirms, palms sweating against his knees. Jonghyun shifts uncomfortably, gaze snapping off to the side with sudden interest.

Taemin blinks. It takes him a moment to wrap his mind around the implication in Kibum’s words. He looks to Jinki, then to Jonghyun, brows furrowed in confusion. “Wait, so you two are—”

“Having magic might be useful,” Jinki interrupts. He places a hand on Taemin’s knee to quiet him. Though he knows the question is inevitable, he doesn’t want to have that conversation here — especially when he isn’t sure where him and Jonghyun stand.

On that thought, he clears his throat and spares a glance at Jonghyun. “If Jonghyun agrees to come along, then…”

“Yes, I’ll come with.” Jonghyun follows his answer with a nervous smile.  

“Good. That’s settled, then.” Kibum nods, then stands to guide them to the door. “I’ll give Taemin the reports and other paperwork relevant to the mission, since he’s been with us the longest. You’ll be leaving tomorrow morning by horse. We have one for each of you on your way to the Western Approach, but you’ll have to leave them behind there.”

Eager to leave the room, Jinki stands and steps through the door, ignoring the expected bows that Taemin and Jonghyun pause to give. He keeps his eye on the floor, not looking up when he sees a pair of travel-worn boots and the frayed end of Jonghyun’s robe until the door closes.

His eyes catch on Jonghyun’s, and he gives a thready laugh before moving past Taemin towards the exit. “Well, I would suggest we have our usual night at the tavern, but I think sleep would be wiser — it’s nearly dark already, and I expect we’ll have to leave early in the morning tomorrow…”

Taemin cuts off Jonghyun’s path with his arm.  “Hold on.” He looks between them, brows furrowed in suspicion. “Am I mad, or was he implying you two are lovers?”

Jinki flinches, and Jonghyun stiffens by his side, but neither of them move to answer.

Their silence apparently says enough.

Taemin’s eyes widen, mouth falling open in amazement before he shouts loud enough to echo down the hall.

“Maker’s breath! You two?”

A tight smile pulls on Jonghyun’s lips when Taemin laughs, full and hearty enough that he has to lean on Jonghyun for support.

“I thought it was a bit odd you were sharing a room, but shit — I didn’t realize it was like _that_.” He looks up from Jonghyun’s word just to punctuate the word with a waggle of his eyebrows. “Andraste’s tits, I can’t believe it. When did it start? How did you even—”

“Taemin, please.” Jonghyun cuts him off and sighs. “Do you have to ask questions?”

“Of course I do!” Taemin’s already wide grin broadens. “You’re both my friends, aren’t you? And you’re really together?”

Jonghyun flicks his gaze to Jinki, either for confirmation or permission, and though Jinki isn’t sure of his own expression, something he does must be indication enough of both.

“…Yes. We’re together.”

Taemin leans back and scoffs. “Well, don’t sound too excited over it. It’s only Jinki’s first steps into the world of romance, after all.”

Jinki stiffens, neck going hot with humiliation. “Taemin.”

Taemin’s teeth sink into his bottom lip as he cringes. “Right. Sorry, I’m being an ass, aren’t I?“

“A bit,” Jinki grumbles.

“Well, I won’t pry anymore then — not yet, at least.” Taemin gives them a cheeky smile and pats them both on the shoulder. “I’ll give you two some privacy and let you pack. I need to go pick up those reports and make my own preparations, anyhow.”

“Thank you,” Jonghyun says. “We’ll see you in the morning, then.”

“Bright and early,” Taemin agrees. Turning on his heel, he heads down the hall, leaving Jonghyun and Jinki alone.

Tension falls between them the moment Taemin is fully out of sight, and after a short moment of hesitation, both of them head the opposite way to leave the central tower. Jinki looks at his feet as he goes, pretending to be interested in the patterned stone floor and not the little glances Jonghyun keeps stealing at him.

The looks are impossible to read, small as they are, and none of them have the warmth or concern he’s come to expect from Jonghyun.

A cold breeze hits Jinki the moment they walk through the grand doors of the central tower out to the fortress yards. He shivers and grits his teeth, watching with an ache in his chest as Jonghyun tightens his cloak around himself and hurries down the stairs.

Jinki hesitates at the top of the landing.

He isn’t sure if he’s supposed to follow. From the small smiles Jonghyun had given him in the meeting, he’d hoped their earlier argument was entirely forgotten and forgiven by now.

Jonghyun hadn’t given any indication of that. And Creators, if Jonghyun doesn’t want him there, he won’t force it.

But where else could he go?

After waiting another moment, he rushes after Jonghyun, ignoring all his hunter’s instincts to make sure his steps are loud enough to be heard on the soft snow. If Jonghyun wants him to turn him away from their shared room, he can say so openly.

When they reach the ladder in the storage barn, Jonghyun looks at him blankly. “You’re coming up?”

“Yes,” Jinki says. “If that’s alright—”

“It’s fine.”

Jinki finds himself staring again at the worn hem of Jonghyun’s robe when he climbs the ladder up to the attic. When he follows Jonghyun up, he sees him already out of his outer robe and kneeling in front of his small travel bag, stuffing it again with the few things he had taken out of it or acquired over their months at the fortress.

His own things are easy to pack. He unstrings his bow carefully before wrapping the wood in a thin linen to protect it from scratches, then lays out his daggers and sword to find them easily. Whatever troubles might arise on their assignment, he would be happy to leave the _shem-_ packed fortress. He’ll have to find and express his thanks to Minho.

“Jinki?”

Jonghyun’s voice carries faintly across the room.

For a second, Jinki thinks he’d imagined it, but when he turns, Jonghyun is watching him with glassy eyes and a sharp crease in his lips.

“I know things have been hard, lately. We haven’t been as close, and I understand that, with everything that’s happened. But then this morning, you…” he trails off, then flings his hand down frustration.

Jinki stares at him, waiting for him to finish, and Jonghyun’s voice cracks as he forces out a question.

“Do you even want me to come along with you?”

“I do.”

The words leave his mouth without hesitation, and though his shortness earns him a frown from Jonghyun, he doesn’t try to explain.

He knows what he wants.

As unsettled as their argument was, the mere thought of leaving Jonghyun behind pains him more than the thought of another conflict. Jonghyun had become a fixture for him — a point of security on their travels south, through losing his clan, through worrying if Taemin was dead —

He can’t help needing him.

He steps closer and places a hand firmly on Jonghyun’s hip to push him back towards the wall. On instinct, Jonghyun moves with the motion, only stopping when his heel hits the corner of the bedroll

Jonghyun’s voice strains. “…Jinki?”

“I want you,” Jinki says.

He hopes that Jonghyun knows he means it as an answer as well as a statement.

“You—?” Jonghyun’s question is cut off when Jinki’s hand slips under his shirt up his side, the other trailing the sensitive line of his jaw. He shivers, and his hands tremble just over Jinki’s collar, clearly torn between the promise of the hands on him and the need to talk.

Not wanting to give him the chance, Jinki covers his mouth with a kiss, and Jonghyun’s fingers finally find where they belong on his shoulders.

The weight of the Jonghyun’s hesitation hangs in his chest, a reminder of their fight, but when he feels Jonghyun start to lean back towards the bedroll, he pushes it aside to concentrate on unlacing the collar of his robes.

Jinki isn’t good at talking, but he had gotten good at this. Grown to like it enough that he craves it whenever the noise of his thoughts gets too much to bear. There’s no room to worry about disagreements about Circles and magic and freedom when he has Jonghyun on his back underneath him as he does now, and there’s no need to worry what curses might leave his lips when they’re from pleasure.

When he reaches the short distance to their bag for the oil, he keeps them in that position, not thinking of anything but the smooth skin against him until their eyes meet.  

Hurt and wanting rests behind Jonghyun’s lashes, deep enough to nearly dampen the heat in Jinki’s stomach.

And then Jonghyun blinks, and his hands are in Jinki’s hair, yanking him down into a kiss with none of his usual care.

Jinki returns it without a second thought even as his body lights with momentary panic

If Jonghyun wanted to forget for now, Jinki could give that to him.


	4. Chapter 4

Jonghyun shifts uncomfortably in the saddle. He hadn’t given much thought to the fact that he’s never ridden before when they presented them with their mounts — riding had to be better than walking, since horses were so expensive — but now he wonders at his optimism. They’re only two hours west of Skyhold, and his thighs are already aching and strained in ways he didn’t think possible.

Half of it was a result from last night, of course — but he doesn’t want to think about _that_.

He’d been a fool, to let Jinki bed him so easily. He hadn’t even received an apology, and there was no indication he’d even changed his mind about the ideas he’d picked up from his templar friend. And yet he’d let Jinki chase away the topic with a kiss, as if it didn’t matter at all that he was spewing the same nonsense that was responsible for his years locked in the Circle.

Jinki didn’t know half of what he went through in there. That much was obvious, from the shock on his face when Jonghyun described a small fraction of what the templars did to them. But just because he didn’t talk about it, didn’t mean it wasn’t there — he never assumed Jinki’s life in Tevinter was anything but hellish despite being given no details. Whenever the Circle came up, Jonghyun had made it as clear as he could that every one had been a prison for him and other mages, and that the templars that ruled them wanted them dead.

Different as they were, he thought freedom was what they both valued — Jinki, an elf that escaped slavery, and himself, a mage that escaped from the Circle — but he’d been wrong, apparently.

Jinki cared more for his hatred of magic.

The realization of that has sat heavy in his stomach since the moment Jonghyun caught him sitting in the tavern with that damn templar. He’d barely eaten since their fight. And yet, Jonghyun had packed his things without a word and walked with Jinki to meet Taemin at the gates that morning.

Soojung would have called him a lovesick fool for coming, if he had found the nerve to tell her of the argument. But he hadn’t, and Soojung had assumed all the hesitance and hand-wringing at their parting was simply fear for their first assignment.

A whistle from Taemin snaps him out of his thoughts. “Hey, Jonghyun, stop sleeping! You’re way behind!”

With a pained sigh, Jonghyun urges his horse into a trot. Taemin sends him a small smile once he’s caught up, but Jinki’s back remains to him, despite Jonghyun’s stare boring into him. He hasn’t turned to Jonghyun or slowed his mount even once since they set off that morning.

He wishes he could blame it on the fact that Taemin is riding next to him. Jinki needed a familiar face after losing his clan, he knows, and Taemin was the only one that fit that role — but the stilted smile Jinki switches to whenever Taemin tries draw all three of them into conversation make Jonghyun certain he’s being ignored deliberately.

Jonghyun had expected that. Even after their first kiss, Jinki had needed space before reaching out again. By any standards, a fight over something as serious as mages and their freedom would be harder to deal with.

But Maker, it still hurt. And the physical discomfort of the ride isn’t enough to keep his thoughts from festering, and after another miserable few hours of travel, resentment at Jinki’s silence is burning hot in his chest.

They stop to make camp just before sunset. Taemin’s exhausted himself of stories, and the moment he’s off his horse, he hurries to the nearest flat surface to correct his map before the last light disappears completely.

Jonghyun grits his teeth when he dismounts, feeling every strain in his thighs when he lands on his feet with an indignant huff. Jinki climbs off of his own horse without a single noise of complaint, expression entirely stoic, which only stokes Jonghyun’s temper more.

He breaches the silence first. “Taemin’s busy. I guess we should make camp.”

At the snap in his tone, Jinki looks up, but glances away before their eyes can meet. “I’ll go for a hunt. We should eat on the road while we still can and save our dry rations for when we need them.”

“Sounds fine.”

Jonghyun doesn’t wait for Jinki to leave before unfastening the large bundle on the horse containing the canvas for their tents. He pulls apart the various poles and ropes, then separates them, squinting as he tries to figure out how to put them all together.

If he’s counting the pieces right, there seems to be only two tents.

As if reading his thoughts, Taemin clears his throat until he has his attention, then winks at him. “I assume I’ll be getting one of those tents all to myself?”

Jonghyun blinks at him. He’d forgotten that Taemin tends to miss all but the most obvious hostilities — and compared to how Jinki had been when they first met, the silent treatment Jinki’s been giving him probably didn’t even register to him as suspicious 

“I suppose you will, since there’s only two…” Jonghyun sighs. If Taemin hadn’t realized they were fighting, he wouldn’t bother telling him. “Jinki and I can share one.”

“Good.” Taemin grins. “I think it’s best he have someone sleeping near him, considering that’s what he’s used to from his clan. Though I never understood the Dalish, I know how much he loved their way of life.”

“You don’t think being around you would help him more?”

“No, not really.” Taemin’s smile turns regretful, and there’s a pause as he looks down before answering Jonghyun. “I wasn’t there when he needed me in the past, and you’ve been with him for the whole journey south. It’s obvious he cares about you, too, since he’s willing to overlook the whole…” he gestures vaguely towards the staff still strapped to Jonghyun’s back. “Mage thing.”

At that, Jonghyun can’t help but scoff. “If you say so.”

Taemin sighs. “I know, I’m sure he gives you shit for it. He’s as bad with feelings as me, and can hold a grudge for ages — but I mean what I said. In all the years I’ve known him, he’s never been with anyone — not even another elf. The fact that he’d even consider being with you means something.”

“I thought he’d been with you? He said you were friends now, but…”

“Maker, no.” Taemin laughs. “We came close to something, when we were kids, but…we were _kids_. He tried to kiss me when we were at your cabin, but considering there was no heat in it, I’m betting that was just nostalgia.”

“No heat?”

“Yeah. No passion, no lust, no desire to carry it further to the bedroom—”

Jonghyun flushes. “You don’t know if he kisses me like that. And even if he didn’t, that doesn’t mean…”

Taemin rolls his eyes. “Please, Jonghyun, I know you — you might be patient and sweet, but you’d never be alright with celibacy.”

Jonghyun huffs. Damn Taemin for knowing him well.

“I mean it — He must really like you.”

Jonghyun wraps his cloak tighter around himself and looks down, unsure what to say. Taemin’s words remind him so much of Soojung’s, when she’d told him that _ma vhenan_ meant _my heart_. Sure, Jinki has affection for him. He doesn’t doubt that. But how much was that worth, if Jinki would put a damned templar’s testimony about Circle life above his own partner’s? And argue that everyone with the misfortune to be born with magic would be better off locked away from society?

From the edge of the nearby forest, Jinki reappears with two rabbits slung on a stick over his shoulder and sticks for kindling under the other arm. At Taemin’s greeting, he looks up, and his eyes fall first to Jonghyun.

It’s nothing — there’s not even a smile behind his dark irises — but Jonghyun’s heart still gives a foolish flip.

By all the Spirits of the fade, he wants to make this work.

As Jinki approaches them, he tries to smile, the same friendly one he had worn when Jinki thought he was no more than a maleficar poisoning Taemin. He could be patient, same as he had been before.

“Hunting went well, I take it?”

Jinki blinks at him, obviously caught off guard by Jonghyun being amiable. “…It was good enough, considering I don’t know the terrain.”

“I can handle the cooking, if you’d like?” He pulls out a pot from one of the nearby supply sacks. “Looks like more than enough for stew I’m used to making.”

“Please, let him make it,” Taemin interrupts, looking at Jinki pleadingly. “I know you can cook too, but Maker, Jonghyun’s the best of us.”

“Alright.” Jinki pauses, then tosses the branches he’d brought for their fire the ground. “Jonghyun, you can start the fire. I’ll skin the rabbits.”

Jonghyun’s hurt softens, even though Jinki turns immediately away. He could never be sure (when was he ever sure of anything, with Jinki?), but the request for him to make the fire seemed like one of Jinki’s quiet and wordless ways of indicating his trust.

Smiling to himself, he rearranges the kindling and hangs the pot on the small metal tripod they’d brought along. He makes sure Jinki’s back is turned before he brings his palms together and begins shifting them slowly. Heat from the Fade concentrates in his hands. He sends it out of himself and into the wood, letting it build until it the flame catches at the exact temperature he’d wanted for their meal.

He’d gotten so caught up in their travels and worries that he’d forgotten the simple pleasure of making his own meal. Making dinner is a welcome departure from the past month of eating tavern and mess hall food, and he indulges himself by adding extra pinches of the dried herbs he’d brought along from his cabin’s garden.

He calls for Taemin and Jinki once the stew reaches a boil, inviting them to gather around the fire as they wait for the meat to cook. Once finished, they split the stew into small tin bowls and huddle under their cloaks to try and avoid the cold that creeps up with the night.

As always, Taemin helps himself to seconds and finishes first. He drinks in the remaining broth, then tosses his bowl in the general direction of their supplies. “I’ll wash that tomorrow. It’s too damn cold to go looking for a stream now.”

“You mean _I’ll_ end up washing it tomorrow,” Jonghyun mumbles.

“If you insist.” Taemin gives them a mock bow, then heads for his tent. “I’ll be off to bed, freezing all by myself in my lonely bedroll. Don’t stay up to late, lovebirds!”

From beside him, Jonghyun hears Jinki sigh before continuing to eat his own meal. He makes no move to put space between them, or deny the implications of what Taemin said.

Jonghyun clears his throat. “You don’t mind sharing a tent, do you?”

“No.”

Jinki takes sip of his broth.

Jonghyun’s brow twitches in irritation, and he just barely manages to calm himself before it turns into a full scowl. Taemin’s words had been the reminder he needed that Jinki cared for him, despite all the conflicts his past created with Jonghyun’s magic. And Jinki had implied that he was willing to look past their disagreement in his own way, by bedding him, hadn’t he?

Or that’s what he hopes.

Dusting off his robe, he takes a deep breath and stands. He’ll let Jinki finish his meal, then ask him to talk once they’re in their tent. “I’m tired from all the riding. I’ll be setting up my bedroll in our tent.”

Jinki barely glances up. “Alright.”

Jonghyun slips him a last smile before entering their tent and pulling off his cloak. Readying his bedroll only takes him a minute, and once he’s stuffed himself within it to keep warm, he’s left with nothing but the ache in his muscles and the anxious tumble of his own thoughts.

It feels like hours, but it’s only minutes later that Jinki enters the tent with his bedroll tucked under his arm.

Jonghyun’s chest tightens at the sight. Normally — and especially since they’d entered the colder climates of the south — they shared a bedroll. Did bringing another mean that Jinki wanted to sleep far away for him, or only that he assumed Jonghyun would want to?

He nods to the bedroll as Jinki unwraps it. “Not worried about the cold?”

Jinki shrugs. “…It’s bearable.”

When Jinki lays next to him, Jonghyun sits up to place a hand on his upper arm. “Jinki. About the other night…”

The shutdown is instant. Jinki’s shoulders stiffen, and his eyes break away from Jonghyun’s to the canvas tent behind him. “What about it?”

Jonghyun considers where to start.

There’s so much he could say, and every argument weighs on his tongue. That Taemin would have died of that illness he had two years ago, if Jonghyun hadn’t escaped to live in the woods. That if he lived by Circle rules, their relationship would never have started or been allowed at all.

That Jinki trusted him _before_ , so why couldn’t he now?

“Do you believe me when I say the Circles were a prison?”

Silence hangs between them for a long moment before Jinki mumbles a hesitant “yes.”

“Then how can you say they should be brought back? Especially when I’ve told you what a horrible place they were for me?”

Jinki’s fingers tense in the fabric of his bedding. “I don’t see why we need to talk about hypotheticals.”

“It’s not a hypothetical to me,” Jonghyun says, feeling his anger rise back up. “I lived in those damned Circles. And if you think they’re redeemable, this is a disagreement we need to deal with.”  
  
“Perhaps it’s best forgotten.”  
  
Jonghyun snaps. "I can’t just forget what you _said_ , Jinki.”

At the use of his name, Jinki finally looks up.

Hoping for something — the beginnings of remorse, an apology, or at least shame for dismissing Jonghyun so easily — Jonghyun meets his eyes.

But he finds nothing. There’s creases in the markings over his forehead, no softness in his eyes — only the stubborn lift of his chin, and the straight line of his lips as he waits for Jonghyun to speak.

Jonghyun clenches his fists. The resentment he’d managed to seal away rips through his gut again, burning hot in his throat and making his next words sharp as a blade.

“Nevermind, then. Enjoy your rest.”

Jinki’s brows lift, but he doesn’t speak. The silence only makes Jonghyun’s heart tighten further — is he the only one that cares enough to talk? — and he throws himself down into his bedroll without a word.

He’s done chasing.

His feelings for Jinki are still there — Maker, they’re still there, because he’s a fool — but he’s not going to do the mending any longer. Not for someone who thought he belonged in a cage just because he’d been born with magic.

***

Jinki knows he’s angered Jonghyun.

He knows it from the moment he wakes up and Jonghyun — the same Jonghyun that used to steal every moment he could when they shared a bed — is gone.

The cold dawn air slips into his lungs when he steps outside of the tent. In the center of their camp, a small fire burns, tended by the gentle shifts of Jonghyun’s palms as Taemin feeds it with nearby bramble.

Jonghyun’s hands still when glances up at Jinki. The fire flickers, dimming for a short moment, then returns to its full strength after he snaps his eyes away. Taemin blinks at it once, shrugs, then turns to send Jinki a full grin.

“You were up last, so that means you have to do cleanup duty.”

Jinki sighs. He’s too tired to argue. After pulling on his heavy cloak, he dismantles their tent, then packs their horses, pointedly ignoring the light conversation between Jonghyun and Taemin.

Until they’re ready to set off, his silence goes unquestioned. Jinki catches Taemin raising a brow at Jonghyun in question of his mood when they finally mount up, which Jonghyun only answers with a shrug. Taemin accepts that as explanation easily — their years in Tevinter together meant had gotten him used to Jinki suddenly going quiet — and he seems entirely unconcerned when he nudges his horse with his heels to direct it forward.

The journey to the Western Approach stretches a week long. All of it is spent in a similar silence to the second day, save the occasional hiss of discomfort from Jonghyun in his saddle and drawn-out story from Taemin. Jinki loses himself in the routine of riding and hunting and camping that comes with their travel, not wanting to think of anything but the present. It’s easy to pretend he’s quiet from exhaustion, when his muscles are a constant ache from the saddle and his eyes close the moment he hits his bedroll.

Usually, he falls asleep seconds later. But sometimes he can’t, and he’s left staring at a familiar head of tousled hair in the dark, wondering at how the sight that used to make him warm now left a the hollow ache in his chest.

They still haven’t talked — not in the way Jonghyun likely needed, angry as he had been after their argument. Once or twice, during the day, things would seem almost-normal, and Jinki could almost believe the whole thing had been forgotten. A bird would chirp, and he’d get a small grin, or they’d pass a strange plant, and Jonghyun would begin a drawn-out explanation of the history of herbal medicine in Orlais. And just when his heart would start to lift, Jonghyun would stop mid-sentence. His smile would dim, eyes snapping cold in an instant, and silence would fall between them again, as heavy as if it had never left.

Jinki doesn’t know how to react to this side of Jonghyun. It used to be so easy to read what he wanted, even though he’d always wait for Jinki to make the first move — there was the concerned push of food into Jinki’s hands, an inviting tilt of his head, or a spark in his eye as he changed into his sleep clothes —

Now, there was nothing. No indication that Jonghyun had ever had anything with him at all, except the fact they still share a tent. But how much does that mean? Jonghyun turns his back to him every night.

And each time, Jinki feels his chest draw tighter.

First he’d lost his clan, and now he might be losing Jonghyun.

Only Taemin is left to keep him the world from falling out under him, and the thought that he might be doing some good against Tevinter on this strange mission they’ve been assigned. If he notices that Jonghyun and Jinki have a tension between them, he hasn’t said anything of it, and by the time they reach the last Inquisition camp before the Western Approach, he’s taken unofficial command of their small group.

With the soldiers there, they exchange two of their horses for bagfuls of supplies and enchanted bottles that allow them to draw water from even the driest plants. Taemin receives a bundle of reports and maps with points of interest pre-marked that he reviews before calling them all together at a makeshift table for a briefing.

“We’ll head in a circle around the Western Approach. Start at the eastmost point of interest, then head north to the big ruins. After that, we’ll check a few more points then loop back around the south and return here.”

Jonghyun furrows his brow and squints at the map. “We don’t need to check anything in the west?”

“The Inquisition has a fortress on that western border,” Taemin says. “Most of that area has already been covered by the scouts that there.”

Jinki leans in to peer at the map. His shoulder brushes against Jonghyun’s, and they both jolt back at the contact, blinking into each others stares.

Jonghyun breaks away first and draws his cloak tighter around himself. “…Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Taemin eyes them oddly, then looks between them. “You two alright?”

“Just tired from riding,” Jonghyun lies. Jinki nods in agreement.

Taemin’s brow wrinkles in skepticism, but he drops it with a sigh and waves his hand. “Right, I forgot you two have never ridden before — your asses must be sore. Go lay down and rest, then. We’ll be walking the rest of the way our mission, now that we’re here.”

“Thanks.” Jonghyun gives him a tight smile, then stands and leaves.

Jinki turns to follow him, but Taemin catches him by the elbow. “Jinki — are you really okay?”

“Yes.” Jinki flinches out of it, and tries to come up with a lie better than the one Jonghyun had given. “I’m just…tense about our mission. Dealing with Tevinter things. Especially if it’s going to be magic.”

“Well, we’ll let Jonghyun handle anything like that.” Taemin grins at him with a playfulness that makes Jinki certain he’s unaware of they’re fighting. “That’s the benefit of you bringing your mage lover along.”

Jinki huffs, turning away before Taemin can catch the pained twist of his lips. “Good night, Taemin.”

***

A worn and dirtied flag emblazoned with a black dragon and a snake marks the first abandoned camp they reach. The sight sends a shiver of fear up Jinki’s spine. Tevinter — and the whole system of magisters who controlled it — was born from the cults of mages that worshipped dragons. Though the cults had fallen, the legacy of them remains strong, and every Tevinter noble house incorporates the majestic creatures into their decor as a symbol of their bloodline’s magical power.

Jinki had carved dragons into wood for the magister he had served a dozen times. He can still recall the splinters in his palms from whittling their countless scales.

By the time he finds the willpower to step forward, Taemin and Jonghyun are several yards ahead of him. He hurries to catch up before one of them notices he’d stopped.

An empty firepit sits near a toppled group of tents torn and ripped by the harsh winds of the Western Approach. On the other side of the camp, a large chest is half-buried in sand that Taemin kicks open the moment he reaches it.

“Time to get started reading these damned things, finally.” He yanks out a stack of journals to throw them onto the weathered table nearby. “Jonghyun, you can inspect the rest of the camp for any magic shit.”

“‘Magic shit,’” Jonghyun quotes, rolling his eyes. “I’ll look around, I think I saw a ruin a bit north.”

Jinki watches him leave, then joins Taemin at the table. They split the stack of journals into two to peruse them for anything the Inquisition might find useful.

Likely presuming no one in the Inquisition spoke Tevene, the Venatori hadn’t bothered to code their messages.

Jinki wishes he couldn’t read them. The first journal he picks up details a mage’s account of boosting his magical power through the blood of others.

Bile rises in Jinki’s throat as he reads page after page of the Venatori’s experiments and methods. How the power gained from a sacrifice was tied to the volume of the victim’s scream, with scribbled charts of comparison. How long it had taken for one of them to bleed out, and how he could feel their life surge through his magic.

For a short moment, he finds himself feeling grateful that the magister had never been like _these_ mages, and is instantly disgusted himself with the thought.

The magister had never killed them, or any of his other slaves, as far as Jinki was aware —but that was hardly a mercy. The single ritual he performed on Taemin certainly came close to this.

He pulls his eyes away from the book. Taemin’s fist is clenched against the table, and Jinki places a hand over his.

“You alright?”

“Fine.” Taemin mumbles, though his expression is stiff. “Just, these books are…sick. These bastards are hardly human.” He pushes back his sleeve and covers the long and raised scar along his arm. “They’re monsters. I rarely think of those days — what _he_ did — but this…”

“I know,” Jinki cuts him off. It’s so easy to remember. Taemin’s arm and chest, covered in a mix of rusted and fresh red from his wounds healing and reopening wtih every movement.

He swallows. “That’s over, though. The men who did this are likely dead, since your Inquisition came through.”

“I sure hope so.” Taemin tries at a smile, but it comes out pained. “They deserve to face the Maker’s judgement for their actions.”

Jinki returns the smile, then pats his arm and pulls away. “Do you want to stop?”

“No,” Taemin says and draws himself up. “Someone needs to do this, and we’re the best suited for it. We know which of this is normal blood magic and which isn’t, unfortunately, if we’re to have any of idea of what they were up to.”

Jinki huffs, sets the journal he’d been skimming aside, and pulls out the next. Thankfully, the first book he’d picked seemed to be the worst of them, as the rest involve descriptions of demons from the Fade and troop movements. It takes them only another hour to sort through the rest of the journals and piles of parchment that had been left behind and store the important stuff.

Jonghyun returns from the ruins a short while later with a dust-covered robe and scratches on his gloves.

“I found some glyphs in the ruins that I think are for pulling things from the Fade, but I didn’t feel any disturbances that indicated they’d been used recently. Did you all have any luck?”

Taemin’s playfulness is back, and he answers Jonghyun’s question about their findings with a wry smirk.

“I’d say we found exactly what we expected  — pages and pages about blood magic and summoning demons, so it matches your finding,” Taemin summarizes. “No surprise with any of that. Typical Tevinter.”

“I, uh, am sorry to hear that still,” Jonghyun says. He wrings his hands with obvious trepidation at the subject, then glances to Jinki. “Are you both alright?”

Jinki looks down and grimaces. He doesn’t want to see Jonghyun’s look of concern, not when he had so little understanding of their experience. “We’re fine.”

The snap in his tone is enough to stifle Jonghyun’s concern. He gives Jinki no more words the rest of the day, and Taemin only the barest needed to decide on the evening meal and set up their camp. Jinki half expects him to say something once they’re in the tent alone — though silence had become the only thing they shared anymore, he’d always known there was a limit to his patience, and snapping at the first sign of concern might be what finally pushes his temper over the edge — but he gets nothing more than the same tight-lipped frown before Jonghyun turns away.

The complete lack of anything, even an argument, leaves him restless. His nerves feel ready to crawl out of his skin, and through the night, he drifts in between sleep and memories of every story of blood magic he’d heard from the whispers in the slave quarters.

He’s the first to wake, and eager for something to do, he throws himself into cleaning up what little traces of life their camp had made the night before. Just past dawn, Taemin steps out of his tent with dark circles under his eyes and the sweat-scent of fear clinging to him.

Jinki watches him try and smile. A lump forms in his throat. He recognizes the glaze over his stare, and the way Taemin looks past him, from the unnaturally quiet moments after the magister had left him bloodied and bed-ridden from the ritual.  

And Creators, he knows he’d worn that look too. With a motion for Taemin to wait, he hurries back to his tent and his bag, rustling through the compartments until he finds one of the satchels of sharp-scented herbs that Joonmyeon had given him long ago.

His digging disturbs Jonghyun — he notices him stir — but he pays no mind to it and returns outside to find Taemin waiting for him silently.

Jinki squeezes his shoulder and presses the packet into his hand. “Here.”

Taemin blinks at it. He pinches the thin cloth in his palm, then lifts it closer to his nose to inhale the scent. His lips pull into a tight smile. “…This is from your clan, isn’t it? One of those scent satchels I liked.”

Jinki shrugs. “It’ll help, with the images.”

“Thanks.” Taemin’s hands shake as he brings it close to his face again, this time breathing it in deeply. The tension in his brow smoothes out, and he exhales with a small laugh. “Hopefully this’ll keep me from smelling all day, considering I sweat through half of my bedroll last night.”

For the first time in what feels like days, Jinki smiles. “For both our sakes, I hope it covers your scent up.”

Taemin nudges his arm, and with a comfortable silence between them, they pack up his tent. Once Jonghyun wakes, they finish cleaning camp, eat a small meal, and set north. The wind picks up as the sun climbs in the sky, and by late morning, the hoods of their cloaks are held tight to block the grains of sand that pelt their faces as they climb over the rolling dunes of the landscape.  Each seems taller than the last, and by the afternoon, Jinki’s thighs ache from the effort of climbing uphill on the shifting sands.

The terrain ahead of them finally changes at the peak of a large dune. The barren sands of the Western Approach break into rusted orange rock that juts up in uneven plateaus towards the sky. A line of deep shadow cuts the line between the middle of the formations, marking a canyon, and Taemin breathes out a small _a-ha_ when he spots it.

He slips his map from its leather case and unfurls it with care to examines at the parchment. “Apparently, that gorge ahead of us leads to some ancient Tevinter gates. I imagine that has something to do with what the Venatori wanted here, since they used to have a camp on the other end of it.”

Jinki squints ahead to the opening of the canyon. “We go in there, then?”

“So long as we reach it before dark. Otherwise, we’ll set up camp nearby and go through in the morning. I can’t imagine we’d be able to comb their old camp for information without being able to see.”

Taemin rolls up his map, and they continue forward to the gorge. The journey down the sand dune is faster than the journey upwards, and the ground is more compacted beneath their feet. They reach the cliffs by afternoon and stop to take a rest.

Jonghyun unwraps one of their packs and passes out the jerky and bread that had been given to them at the last Inquisition camp along the way. Their meal is silent, save the occasional grit of rocks under their feet, until a gust of wind drives a haunting whistle from the gorge.

Taemin shivers and sends a wary glance over his shoulder at the opening. “Maker, I hope there’s no giant spiders or darkspawn in there.”

“There shouldn’t be. The nearest camp said they’d sealed up the hole they were coming from the first time they were in the region,” Jonghyun says. “You were too busy flirting with the guard to actually listen to what she was saying, weren’t you?”

“Well, you know how it is — priorities.” Taemin grins. “To my credit, she was handsome.”

Jonghyun rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, and we all know you would have had a shot if she wasn’t already taken.”

Taemin winks at him. “Of course. I’m charming, aren’t I?”

Something pinches in Jinki’s chest, sharp and bitter, as he realizes with a flash of annoyance that Jonghyun probably _did_ find Taemin charming. Enough to sleep with him at least once. Or a few times — he’d never asked for details. He feels his lips pull into a scowl, and he turns away quickly before either of them can catch it.

“We should get going,” he says. “If we hurry, we still have enough light to explore the camp once we reach it.”

“Alright,” Taemin sighs. He stretches as he stands. “Since you insist.”

Jinki lets Jonghyun and Taemin walk ahead of him as he strings his bow. They haven’t encountered any wild animals yet, but the visibility of the canyon is poor, and he doesn’t want to be caught unprepared if the spiders Taemin had mentioned happened to appear.

Inside the walls of the canyon, the cliff’s shade brings a chill to the air that raises goosebumps over his forearm. Patches of dark and brittle deathroot steal spots in the few bits of sunlight that sneak onto the jagged rock walls from overhead. Fitting to the name, they smell of rotting flesh, and Jinki’s nose curls in disgust every time they pass a cluster of the blighted plant.

“There’s so little visibility in this canyon as it narrows,” Taemin thinks aloud as he peers over the map in his hands. “You’d think they would have mentioned that on the map, but they didn’t. Seems like the perfect place for an ambush or to post a scout. Get someone up on the top of the cliff, and you could probably see anyone coming into this part of the desert.”

A frown curves Jonghyun’s lips as his eyes flick up to the cliff edges above them. “Not sure I like hearing that.”

“It’s important stuff to note, when you’re making maps for a military organization. “And since the idiot that did the first version of the map didn’t think that was important information, we need to stop so I can mark down the shape of the gorge.” Taemin huffs and pulls out his drawing chalk.  “You two do whatever, just don’t get too far ahead of me.”

Jinki sighs and leans back against the nearby cliff, setting his bow beside him. Knowing Taemin, it could take him an hour to perfect his drawing, leaving him entirely unsure of what to do with himself. There’s nothing to hunt, no tree branches to pull off and whittle, and he knows better than to try and speak with Taemin while he’s working.

There’s Jonghyun across from him, but speaking with him is…not an option.

His silence towards Jinki since their journey had started is as firm as it had been for the past several days, and there would be no point in trying to make small talk, even if Jinki felt capable of it.

And by Elgar’nan, he still doesn’t know how to take it. Would Jonghyun even tell him if they were over, when they’d blatantly never declared themselves as anything at all? Or is this how he’d push Jinki away, with silence and an end to even his usual friendliness?

A rock falls by his feet, jarring him away from his thoughts. He pushes himself away from the cliff and quickly grabs his bow, aiming it up as he nocks an arrow, only to leave it drawn and pointed at nothing but the sky. With a frown, he lowers it slowly and continues to squint up at the edge of the cliff.

He’d sworn he’d heard something, but there’s no sign of any person or creature above. Taemin hasn’t even looked up from his map, and only a slight plume of dust around the edge from where the rock had fallen indicate that anything had happened at all.

Only Jonghyun had noticed him move.

Jonghyun steps closer to him, staff held behind his back and brows furrowed in worry. “What’s wrong? Did you hear something?”

“Not sure,” Jinki’s says, unable to get his throat to produce more than the simplest response. Even though they were still sharing a tent, this is the closest Jonghyun’s been to him in over a week. He doesn’t know how to deal with it.

“Hm.” Jonghyun looks up, and Jinki finds himself staring at the line of his jaw and the curl of hair over his ears. Jinki can smell the travel on his robes, but under it is the familiar scent of elfroot and spice that Jonghyun always seemed to carry with him.

Something tugs at his chest, daring him to reach out and touch Jonghyun, but his feet move on their own to put distance between them. He clears his throat. “It was probably nothing. Likely just an animal.”

“Let’s hope so.” Jonghyun spares Jinki a tight smile, then retreats to the other side of the gorge.

A full half hour passes before Taemin rolls up his map with a sigh. “Alright, let’s get moving again. I’ve filled in the details for everywhere we’ve been so far. We should be coming up on the gates soon, so be on the lookout for remnants of camp the Venatori deserted. It should be a big one.”

Jinki nods and fastens his bow to his back. Together, they continue forward into the gorge, and Jinki is eager to be back on their way. Traveling always seems to quell his thoughts for a short time.

They find the camp around the bend of the canyon, tucked into a natural cave formed in the wall. At the edge of entrance stands a variety of tents, one of them large enough to accommodate a dozen people and marked over the door with an intricate black dragon dyed into the canvas.

Taemin snorts at the sight. “Looks like some rich asshole lived here.”

Tense, Jinki only nods. He can’t imagine anyone from Tevinter occupying such an ostentatious tent other than a mage — anyone born without magic in that country would never likely never have the money or prestige to own such a thing — and though he already knows the Venatori are made up of power-hungry mages, the reminder of it sends a shiver up his spine. He can only hope that it wasn’t a magister.

Not wasting any time, Taemin leads them into the tent. A chest is tucked in the corner near a table, and Taemin wastes no time in opening it and pulling out a short stack of parchment.

He flips through them quickly, a frown growing slowly on his lips as he scans through the pages. “This is odd. There’s nothing important here — not a single note about the ruins, or troop movement, or anything. Only some pretentious poetry and love letters.”

Jinki leans over his shoulder to examine the papers. “Maybe the Inquisition took everything already?”

“No. Kibum specifically told me this camp had so many papers they couldn’t hope to bring any with, when he was giving me reports.” Taemin tosses the poetry aside. “And there haven’t been regular patrols from the Inquisition through here for a while, so they couldn’t have taken it.”

“Looters, then?” Jinki suggests. “If they found something valuable near the ancient gates, it’s possible someone stole everything in hopes of finding it themselves.”

“I doubt that. I’ve never heard of bandits coming this far west, since this place is a miserable desert, and they wouldn’t care about papers…” Taemin rubs his chin and sighs. “I guess we’ll just have to tell the Inquisition it was empty.”

“Let’s head to the gates, then. We can stop there for the night.”

Taemin closes the chest. “Alright.”

Jinki turns to the exit where Jonghyun had been waiting. Their eyes meet briefly, and he stops, suddenly paralyzed by a lump in his throat when he realizes the distance Jonghyun had kept between them as he waited. Jonghyun stares back at him blankly, then steps outside without a word, leaving the tent flap wrinkled in his rush to leave.

“Hey.” Taemin nudges his side with his elbow. “Do you know what’s wrong with him? I just realized he hasn’t rambled in forever.”

“No,” Jinki lies. “He’s just in a mood, I guess.”

“Apparently,” Taemin huffs, then lowers his voice to a mumble. “I thought I’d at least get someone to chat with on this mission, but instead of I get two stoic and silent helpers….”

Jinki pretends not to have heard the jab and heads out of the tent. Taemin’s map is out as he follows, and he glances at it one more time before pointing ahead and taking the lead.

“Since they put the camp close, the gates should be a short walk around the bend…”

Taemin stops the moment they pass the corner, eyes wide, and Jinki hurries to catch up with him.

The gates they had been searching for are wide open. They stretch from the floor of the gorge to the height of the cliffs, looming over the narrow passage, but that isn’t what had made Taemin freeze.

Far in front of the gate, three men sit on their horses, two in the snake-embroidered robes of Tevinter mages, and one in dirtied armor.

It’s clear they’d been expected. The mages are already shimmering with the glow of a barrier, and all three of them are mounted with their weapons brandished. The crack of leather against hide echos in the gorge as they force their horses into a charge, sending sand flying behind them as charge forward.

“I thought they were supposed to be gone!” Jonghyun shouts, hands moving to his staff in a flurry of panic. “Can we outrun them?”

“Doubt it, since three of them are mounted.” Jinki draws an arrow as he answers, notching it quickly. The mages had been too arrogant or too stupid to put the barrier on their mounts, so he aims for the closest horse and lets the arrow fly. The bolt pierces its chest, and the beast falls with a strangled cry, tossing its rider forward to skid across the sand.

Next to him, Jonghyun murmurs a string of words, eyes narrowed in concentration. A pillar of flame rises from the earth that engulfs the second rider and blinds the last with a plume of sand.

Jinki’s heart races. He can feel the ripple of magic over his skin. His eyes flick over to Jonghyun for a moment, fearful, before he remembers there’s still a warrior to contend with.

The warrior tugs hard on his reins, bringing his mount to a stop to try and turn to retreat. Jinki doesn’t give him the chance. The horse struggles to adjust its footing on the loose sand, giving him enough time to pull and notch another arrow. He fires it off, not wasting time to aim, and lets out a cry of victory when it sinks into the unguarded collar between the man’s shoulder guard and chest plate. The warrior falls forward in the saddle with a shout, and the horse bucks in panic, tossing him onto the ground before it races away.

Jonghyun is behind him, breathing heavy as he asks if everyone is alright, but Jinki rushes off to the man without a word.

The man is _Tevinter_ , and he’s not going to risk a single one of those bastards escaping.

When Jinki reaches him, he knows he has no reason to worry about an attack — the man’s leg is bent and stuck in an unnatural position on the sand, and a shaking blade is the only defense he has left. Jinki draws Hyoyeon’s sword and knocks it aside with a quick snap, then presses his own blade to the man’s neck before approaching.

He sets a foot over the familiar Tevinter twisted dragon emblem on the man’s armor.  “You’re Venatori, aren’t you? The Inquisition pushed you out months ago. Why are you here?”

In answer, he receives a snarl as the man tries to squirm away. He registers that Jonghyun and Taemin have caught up with him, but pays them no mind, and instead pushes the blade closer to his jaw to draw blood and force him still.

“I’m giving you a chance to explain why you’re here, _shem_. You know you won’t survive my arrow more than a day out here, not without treatment. If you give us the information we want, I can make your death painless.”

At those words, Jonghyun flinches, and his hands come up to bunch in his robes. “Are you sure? I could heal him, so we could try and get information from him?”

“Heal me or not, I won’t tell you anything.”

Jinki reaches down and twists the shaft of his arrow, forcing the man to cry out in pain as the head of it tears more of his muscle. He grits his teeth, eyes meeting Jinki’s with a hard defiance.

“Dirty tactics from a dirty elf.” The man spits the blood that had gathered at his lips away, glancing at Taemin. “Is the whole inquisition filled with _rattus?_ ”

Taemin’s face hardens, and Jinki scowls. “Dread wolf take you.”

With a quick jerk of his sword, he silts the Venatori’s throat. The sand beneath the him darkens with blood, and Jinki stands quickly, head pounding with adrenaline and hate.

He’s not sure how long passes before a timid question from Jonghyun breaks the silence. “…Should we have done that?”

“I’m not sure — maybe he would have told us something, if we pushed enough.” Taemin sighs as he wipes the sweat off his forehead. “But I can’t say I’m sorry to see him gone — I don’t know if I would have been able to stand being called _rattus_ all the way back to camp.”

Jonghyun frowns at the unfamiliar word, but his eyes are fixed on the body below them. “Is it just me, or does this man look…injured?”

Taemin raises a brow at him. “He looks dead to me.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Jonghyun says. Tentatively, he reaches forward to push back the man’s sleeve to reveal deep purple marks around his wrist. He points to another on his collar. “There’s bruises on him — like the kind you’d get from a bad tavern brawl. I don’t believe any of us hit him there. What could have hurt them?”

“The Inquisition, when they were here last?”

Jonghyun shakes his head. “These look too fresh.”

“Perhaps it was bandits,” Jinki says. “Their armor and robes are worn, and their mounts looked it as well. And they only had a few supplies on them — unless they have a nearby camp, or a larger party nearby, this would only keep them alive for a few more days.”

Jonghyun crosses his arms, expression going from curious to frightened. “You think there’s more of them? Should we warn the Inquisition, so they can get proper troops out here in case there is a larger army?”

“The Inquisition won’t put troops out here unless they know it’s necessary,” Taemin says. “A few probable stragglers isn’t enough.”

“Then we continue scouting until we know what’s going on,” Jinki says. “We handled three of them without even a single injury. As long as we avoid being outnumbered, we should be fine.”

Jonghyun opens his mouth to protest, but Taemin cuts him off before he can get out a single word. “Jinki’s right. We need more information before we change our plans, and we need to carry out the mission we were given. It wasn’t given to us as a vital task, but it’s still our job. As the Chantry says, _the Maker yet notices the smallest of deeds._ ’”

Jinki’s lips tighten at the mention other Maker, but he nods in agreement still. “Taemin is right. We should finish what we came here to do, especially since the information we find might explain why the Venatori are still out here.”   
  
Jonghyun looks between them for a long moment before giving in with a sigh. “Alright. But I think we should keep on the move before dark, in case there’s more of them nearby who were waiting for these men to return. And start putting someone on watch at night.”

“Agreed,” Taemin says, pacing when he continues. “If we have to fight the Venatori again, it’d be best if we catch them off guard, instead of the other way around—” He stops suddenly and leans forward. “Wait — do you all see that? To the north?”

Jonghyun and Jinki turn quickly to look. In the distance, something glistens in the setting sun over the top of a large sand dune.

“It looks like something metal.” Jonghyun observes. He shades his eyes with his hand and squints against the sun. “I can’t tell what it is, though, or how large it is…”

“Could be one of the ancient Tevinter artifacts the Venatori were looking for,” Taemin suggests, voice perking up with interest. “And if it is, it hasn’t been found before. I need to mark it on my map, and I’d bet that might be where the bastards we took care of were camping.”

“Let’s hurry, then. We only have an hour before sunset.” Jinki sheathes his sword and begins heading in the direction of the metallic glimmer, not bothering to wait for the rest of the group. He hears Jonghyun and Taemin exchange a few words about burning the bodies behind him, but he guesses they decided against it, because he hears their footfalls behind him only a minute later.

As they continue towards the dune, the object becomes clearer. A flat panel of metal had been the source of the gleam, and with the glare no longer blocking the view, Jinki can see the bars jutting down from it behind the dune.

His stomach drops. He had only the vaguest memories of being bought when he was a child, but cages were a common sight whenever the magister had required extra staff for a seasonal event.

Sand kicks up behind him as Taemin runs to catch up with him. “Jinki — doesn’t that look like…?”

“It does.”

“Maker,” Taemin breathes, eyes wide in horror. “We need to see if there’s any elves in there.”

Jinki’s throat tightens. The words make it more real, and he forces himself to walk faster despite his aching legs, fearful for the fate of anyone that might be inside the cage.

When they reach the top of the dune, he sees that the floor and wheels of the cage are half-buried, and the door is stuck half-open in the sand. The leather harnesses at the front meant for horses are frayed and jagged as if cut by a knife, but it’s the carvings on the bars that catch his attention.

A huff from the top of the dune startles him, and he turns to see Jonghyun limping towards them with a hand clutching his side.

“I know I should have mentioned this earlier, but I’m a bit weak from using all my magic in that fight. If you two could slow down a bit, that would help…” his voice fades as his eyes widen. “Wait, is that a cage?”

Jinki grits his teeth, annoyed at Jonghyun’s need to state the obvious.  His irritation deepens when Jonghyun steps forward with a plainly curious expression and touches the edge of the cage with the tip of his finger and yanks his hand back with a yelp. “Well, this thing used to be magicked — do you think they were hoping to pick up prisoners? I can’t imagine they’d bring animals all the way out here for food supplies…”

“The cage wasn’t for _animals_ ,” Jinki snaps, and in Jonghyun’s silence, he runs a thumb over the small pictograms scratched into the bars. He exchanges a look with Taemin. Though they had been lucky never to see those markings in their magister’s house, the knowledge of their meaning is passed among the elven slaves of Tevinter as easily as the air.

Illiterate slaves — the majority of them — use the symbols to speak to each other in secret, to warn of a cruel master or to try and preserve knowledge of a family line.

The combination of symbols on the cage — a clenched fist for a master prone to beatings, a dagger for one with a murderous temper, and a drop between them for blood magic — meant the worst.

“This cage was used for slaves,” Jinki says, not bothering to keep the cut out of his voice. “The Venatori are sacrificing elves for blood magic here.”

Taemin nods grimly, and Jonghyun pales. He pulls back from the cage as if burned and gapes at it. “You mean, people were…?”

“This is how they transport slaves in Tevinter. I assume they must have bought some and brought them with.” Jinki exhales and forces himself to think. “Though…there’s no bodies, so they might still be alive.”

A bit of color returns to Jonghyun’s cheeks when he processes Jinki’s words. “Perhaps they escaped? That would explain the injuries on the men we fought…”

“I hope that’s the case,” Taemin says. “I know they weren’t freed by the Inquisition — other than us, most of the Inquisition’s forces are heading south now…” Taemin bites his lip. “And shit, I bet the Venatori know that. They’re probably coming back to dig up whatever horrid artifacts they were trying to find before and kick the Inquisition out of the fortress we took from them— there was something in the notes that mentioned that, but I thought it was all old plans from before they were pushed out —”

“They can’t do that though, can they?” Jonghyun says. “It can’t be that easy to take a fortress, even if there are fewer soldiers than usual.”

“With blood magic, and a cage full of slaves for it — assuming this is even the only one?” Taemin huffs. “They might be able to blow a whole wall of the fortress away, then rebuild it for themselves.”

Jonghyun stiffens. “Well…we need to warn the Inquisition before that they might attack, then.”

Taemin goes silent, and Jinki watches his brow furrow. He can easily read the thoughts racing through his head: what’s the quickest path to the fortress, what’s the best way to avoid running into more Venatori, can we even _get there_ in time — and knows in an instant that they’re all pointless.

“No, we shouldn’t warn them.”

Taemin and Jonghyun blink at him.

“It’d take at least a week of nonstop travel to get to the fortress. By the time we reach it, the Venatori will have had more time to arrange whatever ritual they’re planning, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop it there,” he stops to catch his breath. “It’d be better to ruin their plan completely, by taking out some of the Venatori ourselves while they’re still scattered and freeing the slaves they plan on sacrificing.”

Taemin hums, considering the idea, as Jonghyun gapes at him.

“I don’t understand,” he says. “How are we supposed to do that? We were sent here as a _scouting_ party. We don’t have enough strength to do anything.”

“If a group of unarmed slaves could escape and injure them, we should be able to stop them.”

“We don’t know that they escaped — that was just a _guess_.” Jonghyun’s voice strains around the word.  “But we do know that they have mages. And they’re all from Tevinter — they’ve trained their whole lives in magic, with no restrictions at all.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Jinki’s eyes flash in the dark as he stares Jonghyun down. “I know more about magic from Tevinter and what the _shems_ are capable of than you would. And it doesn’t change the fact that we need to kill them, before they accomplish whatever evil magic they plan on doing.”

“You realize we might die, don’t you?” Jonghyun protests. “It’s likely we would.”

“And if we don’t try, countless others could die, and the power-hungry bastards might gain a stronghold in this region. Do you want to be responsible for that?”

Jonghyun grits his teeth. “No. I just think—”

Jinki cuts Jonghyun off with a gesture of his hand, ignoring the indignant glare that earns him, and turns to Taemin. “What do you think is best? You’ve been with the Inquisition the longest.”

Taemin eyes Jonghyun warily, obviously expecting him to protest at being cut off, then clears his throat when he’s met with silence. “As much as I don’t like it, Jinki’s right. We don’t know when the Venatori are planning to attack — it could be only a few days from now — so if we can chip away a bit of their strength, that’s what we should do. Even if we just harass them, we can buy some time or split their focus.” He pulls out his map and unfurls it, words trailing down to mere mutters as he runs his finger along the page. “From the placement of the old camps, we can probably guess where they might stop…add that to the fact that they’re trying to approach unnoticed…”

Jinki interrupts before Taemin can get completely lost in his thoughts. “You think we can find some of them?

“For certain.” Taemin looks up from the map with a tight smile. “And if we can get to them quick, we might be able to free some slaves before they’re killed.”


	5. Chapter 5

In a day, their entire way of travel changes. Seeking to take advantage of the fact the Venatori are human, and thus without the elven ability to see in the dark, they rest during the day and continue north at night. The shift leaves Jinki sleepless and irritable, but it’s easier to bear now that their mission has an urgency to it that hadn’t been there before.

The moment the moons are visible and the sun is hidden, Taemin leads them forward. Jinki follows closely, and Jonghyun stumbles along behind them on the mix of rock and sands.

True to Taemin’s prediction, the next camp they find is built against another one of the desert’s rocky cliffs and seated near an ancient Tevinter ruin. Their approach is hidden by a large sand dune, and the moment they hear conversation in Tevene, they stop and lower themselves to the ground to keep from being spotted.

Taemin licks his lips. “Their position puts us at a disadvantage, since they have the cliff at their backs to defend them. How do we want to do this? ”

“Depends on their numbers,” Jinki whispers.

“Do you think you can get those without being seen?”

Jinki nods. “Just give me a minute.”

He pulls off his boots and steps quietly towards the rise of the dune. The back of his neck tingles with the weight of eyes on him, but he knows he couldn’t have been spotted so soon. He looks back, expecting to see Taemin watching him, only to meet Jonghyun’s gaze — his lip is worried between his teeth, and his brow is creased, anxiety plain in the fidget of his hands in his robes.

Though he’s not certain he’s supposed to, Jinki can read what he’s mouthing clearly in the shape of his lips — _be careful, please, be careful_ — and there’s more emotion in it than Jinki’s seen from him in days.

He looks away quickly, but his stomach is still fluttering when he flattens himself against the sand. Willing himself to ignore it, he continues his crawl up the dune until he can peek his head over the top to assess the camp.

A large blazing fire sits at the center. Men clothed entirely in black surround the flames, some in armor, some in robes, and Jinki has to fight the urge to run immediately when he sees one of the mages bouncing a ball of fire absently from hand to hand out of boredom.

He takes a breath and forces himself to count. Three warriors, three mages, and one of them is tucked near the wall with a cage covered in a ragged piece of burlap.

His fear vanishes the moment he catches a glimpse of pointed ears through a hole in the fabric. A cold determination rises in its place, and he narrows his eyes, scouring the camp for signs of weakness and the best point of attack.

He finds it easily.

Near the horses, a warrior holds a wooden cup out under the tap of a barrel of what he can only guess is liquor. His eyelids droop as his cup fills, and he rights himself with a sudden jerk of his spine before stumbling back to a bow and arrow left haphazardly in the sands east of camp.

He hurries back down the dune as fast as he can without making noise.

“Their scout on the east side is drunk and tired. We can likely knock him out without anyone noticing.”

Taemin nods. “Good. How many of them are there, besides him?”

“Only five,” Jinki slips back down the dune quietly. “Two mages with a staff, and two armored men. There might be more in the tents, but likely not many.”

“Sounds like numbers we can work with.” Taemin rubs his chin. “Jonghyun — is there anything you can do to open the cage from here, with magic? The surprise of that might create a good distraction from anything me and Jinki do on the east side, and the numbers would be in our favor then.”

“If I could see the lock, I might be able to melt it, but it’s too dark for me to do it from a distance,” Jonghyun says. “And it’s likely magicked, anyhow.”

“Then we have to clear out the camp first.” Jinki pulls his bow from his shoulder and notches an arrow on the string. “Any ideas for the mages?”

Jonghyun chews on his lip as he thinks. “I can make some kind of illusion, so they’ll think there’s a demon near. The Veil is thin here, so the mages might think something has really crossed from the Fade. And the sight of it might be unexpected enough to catch everyone else off guard.”

“Do that from the west, then, once they realize me and Jinki are coming from the east — that’d probably be the best way to split their attention.” Taemin gives them both tight smiles, then sighs. “Maker, let us get out of this with your blessings.”

Jonghyun glances at Jinki, then nods, and they split up.

Jinki makes a wide circle around the camp with Taemin until they reach the east side and spot the drunken warrior. The man is an easy target. Half his armor is off, likely to escape the heat of his drunken flush, leaving all his vital points vulnerable.

As satisfying as it would be to pierce the Tevinter bastards heart, he knows better than to do that when they need to remain unheard. He gestures for Taemin to wait. The pullback of his bowstring is silent, and when he releases it, only the impact of the arrow piercing through the drunken man’s throat makes a sound.

One mage looks away from his companions to glance over at the fallen man, but he only laughs and shakes his head when he sees the body. Apparently the man had fallen over in his drunkenness enough for his companions to assume that of him.

Jinki waits for his attention to slip back before whispering to Taemin. “Go for anyone sleeping in the tents.”

“Got it.”

He watches as Taemin slips into the first tent, then comes out a minute later with blood-darkened hands. When Taemin sneaks into the next, he keeps an arrow dawn, aware that even the slightest sound of struggle from within the tent might alert the Venatori to their presence.

As if on cue, a hand flies out of the tent opening, clutching at the sand as a strangled cry escapes from within. The canvas of tent erupts into flames, and Taemin stumbles out, hair singed and blood staining the front of his shirt.

“Kaffas!”

Jinki has no time to worry at the source of the blood. Strings of Tevene swears erupt around the camp as the remaining Venatori notice them and leap into action, hands going to their weapons.

Flames bloom from the western part of the camp in the shape of a beast — wolven or something else, he doesn’t know — and the Venatori mages attentions turn to the creature.

In the confusion, Jinki releases his arrow to strike at the nearest mage when he reaches for his staff. He draws another and aims for his next target, one of the warrior’s charging towards him and the now-burning tent.

Unlike the drunken one, this one is still in full armor, and his arrow bounces uselessly off the heavy plate armor covering the man’s chest. He tosses his bow aside and rolls out of the way, coming back up with his daggers drawn.

The Venatori warrior’s longsword passes in front of him in a wild swing, and Jinki realizes when he’s forced to jump back that drawing his daggers had been a mistake — he’d lost the advantage of reach.

He dodges a heavy upward cut, purposefully stepping away in hopes he’ll have a chance to draw his own sword. To free his hand, he throws his smaller dagger forward, regretting it the moment he releases it when the blade only causes a shallow cut to the man’s cheek.

“Fucking _rattus_ ,” he snarls, already preparing for his next strike as Jinki tries to pull out his own sword.

Suddenly, Taemin shouts from behind the warrior in Tevene. “You’d know a thing about fucking rats, wouldn’t you?!”

The sound of his own language from an attacker makers the warrior hesitate in his upcoming downstrike, and Jinki takes advantage of the momentary lapse to drive his remaining dagger past his guard into the gap of armor between his arm and chest and twists, making the man howl out in agony and drop his sword.

He pulls his blade out and turns quickly to the west end of camp. One of the mages is already dead, a burnt corpse on the ground, but the other is still standing, circling his hands above his head as he generates a storm of frost.

Jonghyun throws up his hands when the storm suddenly surges towards him. A thin barrier of fire comes up between them that melts the icy daggers before they hit, and Jonghyun collapses to lean on his staff, face pale from the exertion as he conjures a weak shield around himself.

The Venatori mage scoffs at his effort, obviously no longer seeing Jonghyun as a threat, and turns away to head for where his staff is seated on the sand.

Without another thought, Jinki finds himself running to the west side of camp as fast as his legs can carry him. He knows how the battle will play out once the man gets his staff — if Jonghyun can’t hold his own against a Tevinter mage without his staff, it’d be hopeless once he reached it.

Noticing Jinki’s approach, the mage snaps a barrier into place and continues towards his staff. The blue-green glow around his skin should be a signal for Jinki to back off, but he ignores it, remembering what Joonmyeon taught him the single time they’d sparred: though barrier’s deflected blades, they often did little against blunt force

When he reaches the mage, he dodges a startled toss of fire from the man and brings the hilt of his dagger down against his temple. The mage falls to the sand with a pained shout, but before Jinki can strike again, he has his staff back in his hands.

Blood pours from the fresh wound on his head, making his scowl all the more menacing as he raises the weapon to point it at Jinki. An ink-black darkness engulfs the crystal at the crest, congealing into a dark shadow before it flies towards him and shifts into a long tendril that wraps around his legs.

Jinki’s muscles seize the moment it hits. His legs go useless beneath him, and he spends his last second of control to send throw himself towards the mage.

A spark flickers across the Venatori man’s skin as he attempts to surround himself with a barrier, but it does nothing to keep Jinki from barrelling into him with all his weight. They fall to the ground in a heap of limbs, and Jinki doesn’t waste a second to right himself before he stabs wildly at the man’s chest with his dagger.

The first blow bounces uselessly against another barrier, and panic seizes his chest.

The numbness in his legs makes it impossible to stand, and the mage’s hands are hovering out of reach, the left brightening by the second as a fireball grows in his palm. His next blow is imprecise, only a jerk of his hand towards the man’s throat, and each one after it is weaker and weaker as it sinks in that he can’t move away from the growing prickel of magic along his skin.

Just as the fireball threatens to fly from the mage’s hand, his blade breaches the barrier, and he sinks it eagerly into his chest.

“Cursed _abomination_ ,” he grits, watching with satisfaction as the mage’s magic vanishes in an instant. He pulls out his dagger and stabs lower, then twists it to pull the blade towards his belly and leans back, gutting the mage open as easily as if he were a deer. The dying mage’s hands scramble desperately between his own stomach and Jinki’s arm as he pleas in weak Tevene for mercy.

Jinki smacks the flailing limbs away and silences the man with his blade through his throat.

He doesn’t want the mage’s dirty palms on him.

After the mage’s last breath, the spell on his limbs fades, and Jinki stands to shake the gore off his dagger. He looks around the camp, expecting to see some semblance of a fight remaining, only to find the camp silent save the soft steps of Taemin walking towards him and Jonghyun finally standing with his staff.

Taemin and Jonghyun exchange some brief words to check on each other, but it all sounds distant under the pound of adrenaline still in Jinki’s veins. “Are there none left?”

“All taken care of,” Taemin says. He sheathes his own small dagger and jerks his chin towards the caged elves against the cliff behind him. “Though I wouldn’t say we’re in the clear. I think we scared the shit out of the slaves. They likely think we’re bandits — might fight us if they think we’re here to take them.”

“Well, let’s fix that.” Jinki steps past them both to approach the cage.

When he yanks off the burlap obscuring most of it from few, the elves inside glare at him, and the few that are older or larger than the rest push the children behind themselves.

Jinki stops, realizing quickly that he’s ill-suited for convincing a group of scared elves that he’s here for them. He must look wild — the struggle with the mage had smeared a streak of blood across his face, and his hands are still covered with drippings from his gut wound. All, in addition to the vallaslin on marking his face, and they’re more likely to see him as a savage than a former Tevinter.

He clears his throat and makes sure to use his most polite Tevene. “We’re sorry if we frightened you with the fighting. We’re here to free you,” he says, gesturing to himself, then to Taemin and Jonghyun. “ _Manūmittimus._ ”

Most of the elves blink at him, still skeptical, but a young boy in the front leans forward to stare with wide eyes. “Truly?”

Taemin steps to stand beside him and answers in Tevene. “Yes, we’re here to help. We’re part of the Inquisition.”

Any trust they had earned seems to disappear as disbelief ripples through the cage in a visible wave.

“But the Inquisition was a Chantry organization, isn’t it?” One of the older women asks. “Two of you are elves, and one of you…” he gestures to Jinki’s face. “Well, I don’t know what you people are called, but I know you don’t believe in the Maker.”

“The Inquisition takes who they can, regardless of race. And I’m a devout believer in the Maker myself,” Taemin says, smiling broad. He reaches for the brooch on his cowl with the Inquisition insignia, unfastens it, and sticks it through the bars. “See? I work for them. I’m a map maker and a scout.”

Her eyes narrow. “You seem more likely to be a spy, considering you speak Tevene.”

“He’s not,” Jinki says. “We were both slaves in Tevinter, same as you. I escaped and joined a Dalish clan — then the Inquisition, when I heard they were fighting a Tevinter cult. Nothing from that country could be good.”

“Well, we can agree on that.” The woman huffs, seemingly in amusement. Her dark eyes flash in the light when she finally steps forward. “Sorry for interrogating you — just wanted to know if we were better off running back to the other slavers in the area in case you were going to use us for something worse.”

“I understand.” Jinki nods grimly. He places a hand on the lock, lifting it away from the cage, and squints at it. “Do you know if they have a key somewhere, so we can get you out of here?”

“There’s no key — it’s a magic seal.” She smiled crookedly. “Otherwise I would’ve picked it myself days ago.”

Jinki swears.

“Don’t worry, Jonghyun can likely do it.” Taemin interrupts. He turns, and Jinki follows his movement, realizing with a start that Jonghyun had stayed back several yards from the cage. “You don’t need to hover back there, you know — come give this a try.”

Jonghyun blinks at them until Taemin waves for him to hurry, then limps forward.

Jinki watches him, torn between wanting to help him and wanting to keep his distance.

Jonghyun’s face is pale, likely from the strain of overusing his magic, and his hands shake when he finally pulls them from his robes to place them on the lock. He murmurs something under his breath, bringing his hand to a glow, then jerks his hand back and bites his lip.

“…The spell’s seal is too complicated for me to break properly, but I think I can do it with brute force.” He casts an apologetic look at the elves inside. “You might want to brace yourselves.”

Each of the elves clutches a nearby bar and turns their attention to Jonghyun’s hands.

Sweat collects on Jonghyun’s brow as pure light rises from his hands. His fingers clutch the lock tighter. The cage shakes, sending tufts of sand into the air and forcing Jinki to squint.

Suddenly, the white glow turns a sharp green, and the very air around Jinki seems to crack. The cage tips, throwing the elves inside onto the ground, and falls with a loud crash.

Jonghyun collapses with it, but his voice rings out clear from inside the resulting cloud of sand a moment later.

“Is everyone alright?” He coughs, trying and failing to wave away the dust as he forces himself up. “I’m sorry about that, I didn’t want to—”

Jinki pushes past Jonghyun to check on the elves. Finding the door of the cage, he yanks it open and helps the first woman he sees climb out. The rest follow after her, until only a few children too small to get out on their own but too weak to be lifted by the others that are left inside. Jinki reaches down and pulls them out, keeping the smallest under his arm until he  can pass it to the nearest adult.

A dozen pairs of eyes blink owlishly at Jonghyun in the moonlight, a wariness in their gazes that Jinki recognizes instantly. Back in Tevinter, any human among elves would be the person in charge, and a mage doubly so.

The thought makes him scowl. Though Jonghyun shifts under their stares, clearly uncomfortable, they all stiffen with the acceptance of authority when he stands on shaking legs and clears his throat.

“Do any of you all need healing? I don’t have much energy left, but I can try and help if you have severe injuries or illnesses.”

A rumbling muddle of confused Tevene follows his offer. Jonghyun wrings his hands in confusion, and the woman that had questioned Jinki earlier looks at Taemin with a furrowed brow. Sensing the problem, he steps forward to intervene with his trademark disarming grin.

“If you’re not comfortable being healed, don’t worry — he’s just another a member of the Inquisition. You don’t have to listen to him or accept any magic.”

Jonghyun frowns. “Some of them might _need_ healing, though…they look like they’ve been starved for days.”

“They were just about to be used for blood magic,” Jinki snaps, and only Taemin is near enough to hear him hiss his next words. “They’d be better off far away from any mages right now.”

Jonghyun’s lips tighten. From the stubborn crease in his brow, Jinki thinks he’ll dig his heels in and insist on helping — he saw that expression when they last argued — but this time, he only nods and turns to leave Jinki and Taemin alone with the group of elves, who relax the moment he disappears behind one of the tents still standing in the Venatori camp.

Taemin clears his throat to draw their attention back to him. “Well, anyway — I can give you all directions to safety, if you could provide me with some details on what the Venatori have been up to.”

The elves’ testimony proves everything they suspected: the Venatori planned on using the slaves and an ancient Tevinter ruin to take back the western fortress from the Inquisition. The slaves had no commonality other than that they were all cheaply bought in a bulk purchase from the magister running the operation.

They didn’t have the name of the magister — they were all from the bottom rungs of the market, and had none of the intricate knowledge of political dealings those who worked in magister and other noble houses gained — but simply the title is enough to make Jinki’s blood run cold.

He knows, logically, that his former master isn’t of the character to be involved in such a bloody scheme as this one.

But it _had_ been years. And though he’d seem regretful of what he’d done to Taemin, on that last night when Jinki had forced himself back to his rooms to steal the maps they needed, how much could he trust that?

The magister had promised never to do blood magic, before he did what he did to Taemin. Who knows what he’d be like now, especially after they both ran?

He falls silent as he loses himself in his thoughts. In the background, Taemin’s voice is a quiet drone as he teaches the elves how to read the stars to find their way to the nearest Inquisition camp and a few sources of supplies and water.

What would he do, if the magister were to show up here?

Creators, he wanted to kill the man for everything he’d done. But that would mean _seeing_ him — and if his pathetic attempts at hand-to-hand combat had taught him anything, he should know better than to think he could stand up against the bastard behind all his worst memories.

A hand on his arm jars him out of his thoughts, and he jumps.

“…Jinki?”  Taemin eyes him with concern. “Did you want to talk with the elves before I send them on their way?”

He tries to swallow, only to realize his mouth is too dry for it to do anything but strain his throat. “I don’t have anything to say, no. But do you think it’s a good idea to send them back on their own?”

Taemin shrugs. “The more distance we put between them and whatever magister is behind this, the better, considering what the Venatori want is bodies — we don’t want them to get recaptured if we’re out numbered when we encounter another group.”

Jinki nods, seeing the logic. “It is best they leave, then.”

He looks over to the group one last time. A dozen tired faces and pairs of hollow eyes stand before him. Even the woman he had spoken to earlier looks lost behind her mask of determination, and his chest pulls with a painful sort of nostalgia. Had he and Taemin looked so confused when they’d freed themselves and escaped Tevinter?

There had been moments of doubt, if their freedom had been worth it — slavery in a noble’s house was certainly _easier_ , compared to the stealing and running they had to do for weeks — but that doubt had disappeared the moment he saw Hyoyeon. A free elf, a _Dalish_ elf, one that had never been touched by slavery or any other terror the _shems_ could inflict on them.

He lifts his chin, then nods, trying to imitate the everything Hyoyeon had been to him that night, and speaks slowly to suppress every trace of Tevinter in his accent. “Dareth shiral.”

One of the children stares at him in wonder, and two of the elves bow their head back. The rest only stare at him for an awkward moment before nodding to Taemin and turning towards the east horizon.

Jinki and Taemin watch them leave, a quiet understanding between them.

Eventually, Taemin nudges him with his elbow. “We should probably clean up so we don’t smell like crazy cultist guts while we sleep, and find Jonghyun.”

Too drained to bother with words, Jinki mumbles in an acknowledgment and drags himself towards the now-empty Venatori camp. He rubs at his face and grimaces, somehow only noticing then that the blood on his face has cracked and dried. The barrel of water remaining in the Venatori camp is enough to wash the blood off of his face and armor.

The familiar worn and dirtied tan of their canvas tent already sticks out amongst the black fabric of the Venatori’s tents. Jonghyun must’ve gotten sick of waiting for them to return and set it up himself.

He opens the tent flap quietly and steps inside. An empty bedroll rests to the left, and Jonghyun is already resting in the other, flat on his back and chest heavy with sleep.

It’s an inviting image, despite the tension between them. A part of him aches to join Jonghyun under the covers — he could use anything warm and familiar now — but he knows he wouldn’t be wanted there.

Jonghyun had made that much clear by setting up the second bedroll for him.

***

At the rustle of cloth within the tent, Jonghyun startles awake.

His heart races. He knows where he’s no longer dreaming — there’s none of the fog or greenish tint to the air that the Fade had — but fear is still echoing in his pulse.

He slows his breath and turns to Jinki. Maybe if he replaces the image of Jinki from his dreams with the real thing, he’ll calm down enough to go back to sleep.

Jonghyun stares at him, expecting his heart to slow, only to find his throat closing in panic when he spots dried blood under Jinki’s jaw.

Bile surges up his throat. He hurries out of the tent, not bothering to close the flap behind him before bending over to face the ground.

His stomach continues to roll, but when he produces nothing more than spit, he straightens himself with a grimace and wipes at his mouth. So much for trying to go back to sleep.

Warily, he looks back inside the tent. He expects to see Jinki awake and annoyed from the noise he had made running outside, but somehow, he’d managed to stay asleep.

A shiver of fear runs up Jonghyun’s spine, and he snaps his gaze away from Jinki’s face. Though his eyes are closed, he can only imagine them open — open and wild and flashing with triumph as he twists his dagger in the gut of the Tevinter mage and calls him a cursed _abomination._

That hadn’t even been an illusion of the Fade — it’d been something he seen happen with his own eyes, transposed from his memories of the night to his dreams.

He knows he’s nothing like the Tevinter mages Jinki hated — he’d never once considered practicing blood magic, and the only powers he cares about are the ability protect and heal — but did _Jinki_ know that?

When they first met, Jinki had threatened him, simply because he was a mage. And Jinki had called him a maleficar, weeks later, after he’d been nothing but friendly and kind.

He’d forgotten and forgiven all that long ago. It’d been easy to, with the apology Jinki had given, and his shift from surly to friendly to subtly flirtatious as the weeks went on…

But the way Jinki had spit out _abomination_ at the mage as he killed him — that same slur he had spit at Jonghyun only a year ago — makes him feel like he might be the next mage on the end of the elf’s dagger.

With a sigh, he fixes the tent flap closed to block out the sunlight and looks out in the distance for Taemin. Maybe he could ask to switch tents, if only till his watch is over.

Heading to the edge of the camp, he finds Taemin on a towering formation of rocks near the cliff wall with his hand in his chin and his gaze out on the far horizon. He approaches the rocks as obviously as he can to avoid startling Taemin, but it doesn’t seem to help.

When he whispers his name, Taemin’s ears flinch violently as he leaps up, and only a quick adjustment in his balance saves him from falling from his perch.

“Andraste’s ass, Jonghyun!” Taemin huffs. He turns to him as he shakes the sand off his breeches. “You scared the shit out of me — I expected you to be knocked out from using magic today. Can’t sleep?”

“I’m having trouble.” Jonghyun smiles wryly. He climbs up the rocks until he’s on one just beneath Taemin.

“Battles tend to do that to people,” Taemin says. “I couldn’t sleep for two days after my first fight with the Inquisition, even though I didn’t do anything in it at all.”

“Mm.” Jonghyun fiddles with his robe, then takes a deep breath. “Speaking of sleep…I actually wanted to ask a favor of you, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh?”

“Could I sleep in your tent tonight? At least until Jinki’s watch starts?”

Taemin’s brow furrows. He stares down at Jonghyun, obviously confused by the request.   
His mouth opens around a question, but seems to think better of it, because he closes it shortly. “Sure?”

“Thanks. I’ll probably head there in a bit, then.”

Jonghyun leans against the rock to his back, wanting to wait at least a few minutes before heading to find Taemin’s tent. Taemin’s eyes are on him, he knows, still curious and confused from his request, but he pretends not to feel them. He doesn’t want to explain that he’s too afraid to sleep next to Jinki because it seemed more and more like Jinki sees mages as something dangerous and less than human.

The clearing of Taemin’s throat breeches the silence. “Can I ask why you want to stay in my tent?”

Jonghyun sighs.

Of course Taemin would ask.

“I’m not sure Jinki would like me talking about it.”

“I’m not sure he likes anyone talking about anything, usually. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

Jonghyun laughs, soft and bitter. “I suppose that’s true.”

“Something is really up with you two, isn’t it?” Taemin sighs. “Not that he’s ever chipper, but he’s seemed even less happy since we left the Inquisition. Is it because I found out about you? I tried not to tease him too much, but I can see how me knowing he has a lover at all might make him weird…”

“No, it’s not that.” Jonghyun runs a hand through his hair, only to grimace when his fingers catch in a knot.  “It’s nothing to do with you. He’s just…scaring me, a bit. Especially after how he killed that mage.”

Taemin raises an eyebrow. “The Venatori one? I thought you’d be happy he killed him, considering you were in a tight spot.”

“I know. I am, and it needed to be done, but…” Jonghyun hesitates. “I’m not sure if he sees me as any different than them, since we’re both mages.”

“I’d say he does. He wouldn’t sleep with you if he thought you were like the ones from Tevinter, you know?”

Jonghyun frowns. “It’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.” Jonghyun sighs and resigns himself to explaining in full. “Back at the Inquisition’s main fortress…there was a friend that he made, Minho. He was the templar that spoke to Kibum to give us this mission. I guess he talked to Jinki about Circles. We had a fight about it before we left — it sounds like he thinks the mages should be put back in them, and that their freedom was a mistake.” Jonghyun sighs. “We fought about it. I know I never told him much about life in the Circle — just like he never told me much about Tevinter — but I still thought he’d take my word for things.”

Taemin’s expression tightens. “He really said you should be locked up?”

“Not directly. But he said the Circles might be necessary. To protect people from power-hungry mages.”

Taemin winces. “No wonder you fought. Shit.”

“Yeah.” Jonghyun sighs. “I tried to bring it up again later, after we’d calmed down, but he didn’t see any need to talk about it. So I just…dropped it. And now I’m worried one wrong move on my part will make me seem like one of the Tevinter mages, or he’ll think I’m using blood magic like he did when you were at my cabin, and he’ll…” his throat tightens. “Do to me what he did to the mage last night.”

“I don’t think he’ll do that.” Taemin leans down and places a hand on his shoulder. “I know Jinki. He’s an asshole sometimes, but he wouldn’t murder anyone.”

Jonghyun places his hand over Taemin’s, enjoying the brief contact. “You’re probably right. I just…worry.”

“I get it.” Taemin pats his shoulder before pulling his hand away. “But if you don’t feel safe, you don’t have to stay with him. I was happy for you two, but if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”

Jonghyun nods, then falls silent. As angry and frightened as he’d gotten with Jinki seeming more like a templar and less like the Dalish man he’d known, he’d somehow never reached around the logical conclusion that their relationship would come to an end from it.

He doesn’t want that, does he?

The mere thought feels like a chasm opening in front of him. He tears himself away from it before it can find a way to burrow in his mind and stands up.

“I’m going back to bed. Feel free to wake me when you get Jinki for his turn on watch; I’ll return to his tent then.”

“Sure thing.” Taemin nods. “You get some rest.”

***

The moons are full and bright through the open flaps of the tent when he wakes to the sound of Taemin folding his bedroll.

Fighting back a yawn, Jonghyun sits up and rubs his eyes. He knows that he’d slept since the moment he entered the tent— dim as it was, he had memory of being in the Fade — but it still felt like he’d barely rested.

He rubs his eyes and blinks at Taemin. “You didn’t wake me up?”

“Sorry.” Taemin smiles at him apologetically. “You still looked exhausted. I couldn’t bring myself to.”

“It’s fine.” Jonghyun smiles back. Though he’d meant to slip back into Jinki’s tent once it was empty, it’d probably been good he got the extra sleep.

Jinki’s stare bores into him the moment he leaves the tent.

Had Taemin said something to him after their conversation? He wouldn’t put it past him to interfere, if only for the excuse to lecture Jinki for a change.

Jonghyun straightens his posture, trying not to show his nerves. He still hasn’t decided how much he wants to allow Jinki to see he’s hurting, when all his earlier efforts at reconciliation had been rebuffed.

Jonghyun passes him a warmed bowl of oats and water. Jinki lingers with it after he passes it over.

“Starting something up with him again?” He asks. The tone of his question is teasing, but the smile on his lips is more of a sneer. “Didn’t think it would happen so soon.”

Jonghyun blinks, entirely confused by the sudden question. ”Starting something? I don’t get what you mean.”

“You know — whatever it was you had with Taemin,” Jinki responds. “I suppose you have a thing for elves?”

Jonghyun’s stomach drops before what Jinki had said even sinks in.

Rage boils in his gut. A series of curses rests on his tongue, threatening to spill over. He yanks his hand back and says the first string of words without swears that flits through his mind.

“I don’t have a _thing_ for anyone, in case you haven’t noticed.”

The tattooed curves over Jinki’s brow rise as his eyes widen.

Before Jinki can respond, Jonghyun turns away and bites the inside of his cheek.

Of all the things Jinki could have brought up, he had to bring up _Taemin_. As if his childhood friend was causing the rift between them, and not his own prejudice.

Anything to avoid bringing up the slurs he’d spit at the Tevinter mage. And the fact that he thinks mages should be locked away and ruled by templars again.

With shaking hands, Jonghyun smoothes out his robe, grabs his staff, and stalks ahead to where Taemin is waiting for them.

Taemin takes one look at Jonghyun’s expression.  “Well, you look madder than a drugged dragon.” He glances back over his shoulder at Jinki and frowns. “What’d he say?”

“More ignorant shit, as I should’ve expected.” Jonghyun grits his teeth. “It’s nothing.”

Taemin eyes him skeptically, but eventually concedes with a shrug. “…Alright. I won’t push. But if you need me to tell him off, let me know.”

“I can handle it,” Jonghyun says. “Silence has been working well for us, I think.”

“Well, as long as we get done what we need to get done, I can live with awkward tension  every time we stop to make camp.”

“Good.” Jonghyun huffs and adjusts his staff in his hand.

***

 

From the moment they leave camp, Jinki’s mind is on everything but their surroundings. He barely sees the dunes and rocks around him. Every time he blinks, the image of Jonghyun sleeping in Taemin’s tent appears before him, and everytime he looks over his shoulder, the stony set of Jonghyun’s lips remind him of the hurt beneath the anger in Jonghyun’s voice when he’d snapped at Jinki early that evening.

He doesn’t know whether he’s more angry with himself for lashing out with his snide comment, or at Jonghyun for leaving him to wake up to an empty tent without a word. Though he knows better than to think Taemin or Jonghyun would sleep together, his stomach still twists into knots at the thought that Jonghyun would prefer to share a tent with Taemin over him.

With his thoughts preoccupied, it takes him a while to realize they’re being followed.

At first, he writes off the noises coming from behind them as curious fennec, following them for meal scraps as animals would do with his clan back in the forest — but when he sees a person-shaped shadow stretching from a nearby rock, he twitches his ears back to listen.

With the constant sand blowing through the Western Approach, it’s hard to distinguish the sound of steps — they’d used that to their advantage when attacking the Venatori — but once he concentrates, he can hear the steady crunch of dirt under a pair of feet.

He feigns a scratch at his thigh to pull out the dagger strapped there, then hurries to catch up with Taemin and Jonghyun, who had ended up ahead of him.

Jonghyun clams up the moment he arrives, but Jinki forces himself to keep his expression neutral. “We’re being followed.”

Jonghyun’s first instinct is to look back, and only a quick placement of Taemin’s arm over his shoulder stops him.

“Animal or human?”

“It sounds like a person.“

“Just one?”

“I think so,” Jinki says. “But we should be careful, regardless. One mage is dangerous enough.”

Behind him, Jonghyun voices his displeasure at the comment with a huff, but stops with that.

“I say we confront them,” Taemin says. “Better now than when they have allies.”

Taemin addresses the empty landscape with as much authority as he can muster. “We know you’re following us — show yourself now, and put any weapons you have aside.”

Silence.

Taemin clears his throat. “If you don’t come out, we’ll come looking for you. You’re not likely to get away, and any attack you might make will result in a swift strike back — we’re with the Inquisition.”

A woman’s voice echos back at him.

“The Inquisition?”

Jinki pinpoints the source of the question — a narrow and barren tree rotting between two rocks — and a woman steps out from behind it a moment later.

Her hair spins in a wild tangle above her shoulders that hides her ears, but her eyes gleam like an elf’s in the night. A small dagger rests in one of her hands, and what looks to be a flask of water sits at her waist. Jinki’s stomach lurches at the confidence in her step as she approaches them, and the warrior-like firmness of her arms. Only the bareness of her face keeps him from seeing Hyoyeon in her place.

“Yes, I’m with the Inquisition,” Taemin says, voice still guarded. “Who are _you_ with?”

“No one but myself, at present.” Her lips twitch with mild amusement, and Jinki relaxes instantly. Her accent is entirely Tevinter. “I escaped a week or two ago from some bastards I was sold to. Been wandering since.”

Taemin’s guard falls, and is replaced with his usual grin. “Well, congratulations on that.”

“Thank you.” She smiles tensely and palms her dagger into her other hand.  Her movements are tense, as if she’s poised to flee, but there’s no sign of fear in her eyes when she levels them Jinki. “You’re from the Inquisition too?”

“Yes,” Jinki says, wanting to be the one to speak to her. “We were originally sent out here to investigate the old camps the Venatori left behind, since they were supposed to be gone. But then we ran into a party of them, and found they were using blood magic. So we’re trying to stop it.”

The woman startles, and looks at him with wide eyes, likely not expecting to hear her own  accent from the mouth a Dalish elf.  

“…You’re Tevinter?”

“He is,” Taemin answers for him. “And so am I, if you haven’t already noticed. I like to imagine I have more of an Antivan accent now, but apparently that’s not the case…”

“And him?” She juts her chin out at Jonghyun. “He’s Tevinter too?”

“No,” Taemin says. “He’s a friend of ours. Also with the Inquisition.”

“I see.” Her lips purse in thought, gaze remaining on Jonghyun. He shifts uncomfortably under her stare until she turns back to Taemin. “So — have you stopped the Venatori yet?”

“Not yet,” he says. “We’ve taken care of a few groups, so far, and are sending the elves we free back to the nearest Inquisition camp. But we heard there’s a magister leading this whole plan, and we’re continuing until we find him.”

She nods. “I heard the same — he’s planning on taking out the western fortress. He’ll have a harder time of it if you’ve already freed some of the sacrifices, but still….he’s a powerful mage. One group of slaves might be enough to do significant damage.”

Jinki shivers. He’d heard, through his magister and his fellow slaves, rituals with dozens of sacrifices carried out to kill a powerful rival or boost the mage’s powers. But it had always seemed so distant and improbable, like a heavy nightmare that would never come to pass, compared to the flesh and touch of the magister taking him to bed.

He’d never had time to think of it until the magister proposed using his blood for power. And due to Jinki’s refusal, he’d used Taemin’s instead. Though Taemin had eased his guilt the one time they’d discussed it, back at Jonghyun’s cabin, a part of Jinki still holds himself responsible for the scars that cover Taemin’s body. He wouldn’t let anyone go through that again, if he could stop it.

He turns to the woman, unconcerned that he might be cutting off whatever conversation her and Taemin were having. “You should get out of the area, in case the Venatori find you. We’ve cleared out all the Venatori east of here, so you should be able to get to the Inquisition camp safely.”

Her attention snaps to him, and her eyes glint at the new angle. “I’m not leaving. There’s still more of us out there. They’re scared of the Inquisition, so I want to help you.”

The stubborn set of her jaw echoes his memories of Hyoyeon, and he finds himself needing to swallow a lump in his throat. “I’m alright with that, if you’re a decent fighter. We can’t risk having a liability, since they could just use your blood for magic.”

She grins at him. “Have you heard of the arenas in Minrathous?”

“The magister that owned us never took us there, but I remember hearing of them.”

“I was a fighter there. Did good, for a few years, then had a spell of sickness that weakened me. That’s why I’m here — I was sold to the Venatori when I lost one too many fights.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re not stuck with them anymore. We’re much better company.” Taemin smiles and leans towards her. “Though I don’t believe we’ve caught your name yet…?”

“Seungwan.” She finally puts her dagger in the small sheath at her side. “And yours?”

“I’m Taemin. Official Inquisition mapmaker, and unofficial leader for this mission.” He gestures behind him with a purposefully grandiose sweep of his arms. “The Dalish elf is Jinki, and Jonghyun is our mage.”

“I see.” She eyes Jonghyun narrowly at the confirmation of his status as a mage, but eventually turns her attention back to Taemin. “I’ll help you all with the Venatori that are left. Do you have any extra armor or weapons? Potions, at least?”

“We have potions, but that’s it,” Taemin answers. “We’ve been taking supplies and rations from the Venatori camps as we go, but we left the last one behind a few miles ago.”

“Then I’ll make do with what I have, until we get some more of the bastards.” The smile she attempts strains at the corners of her mouth, and he flinches with her when her lip splits.

He hadn’t noticed before — he’d been too distracted by the similarities in her build and posture to Hyoyeon — but under the surface of her boasting is a deep weariness from wandering. Even in the darkness, Jinki can see that the skin of her broad shoulders is blistered and burned from exposure to the sun.

Jonghyun seems to notice it at the same time as him, and speaks up from behind them both. “Perhaps we should set up camp early. Sunrise is only a few hours away.”

She eyes him suspiciously, but eventually nods in agreement. “Fine with me. From what I remember overhearing about, their plan is still a few weeks away, and they’ll likely delay it even more once they realize their shipments of sacrifices aren’t coming in.”

Seungwan designates herself as first watch and settles at the highest point in the area.

As Jinki sets up the tents, Taemin marks his map with the landmarks they had passed that night. From the corner of his eye, he watches Jonghyun. The mage fiddles with their single iron pot for a moment before climbing up to the dune where Seungwan had settled.

Even when he tries to angle his ears towards them, he can’t hear the low conversation they’re having. Jonghyun kneels behind her, hands out to hover her shoulders. The soft glow from Jonghyun’s magic lights trickles from where Seungwan had perched to bathe the camp in a blue light that blends purple with the orange from the sunrise.

He turns back to finish the tie on their tent rope before Jonghyun can catch him looking.

To his surprise, Seungwan follows him to sit at the far end of camp. Stretching out her legs, she takes a seat on the ground and digs into her meal. As Jinki had expected, the blistered and peeling skin that had been on her shoulders is gone, replaced by the bright red flush of healing skin.

She wipes her mouth and tilts her head towards Jonghyun. “Strange mage you have here, asking permission before he touches or magics you.”

Jinki takes a long sip of his broth as his thoughts spin from the simple statement. Unsure how to respond, he answers with the shortest response he can manage. “He is.”

“He seems kind. Are all mages in the south like that?”

“I don’t know. He’s the only one I’ve met,” Jinki answers. It’s a half-truth, but it’s the only answer he feels like giving. Joonmyeon and the Keeper of his clan were gone now, and as Dalish elves, they hardly counted.

Seungwan hums. “And you don’t trust him enough to share with him?”

The direct question flusters him. “What?”

“He mentioned that I’ll have to either share a tent with you or him, since there’s only two tents. Which kind of implies you refuse to share with him, doesn’t it?”

Jinki grits his teeth. It made sense for Seungwan to assume he was the one with the problem — most people held wariness of mages — but the thought still angered him, and he speaks without thinking. “I’m not the one who decided that.”

The snap in his voice instantly quiets her, long enough for him to worry that he’s somehow frightened her. But when he glances over, she’s staring down at her empty bowl with a thoughtful expression, plainly trying to work out the implications behind his statement.

It’s the same thing he would do, if he were thrust into a group of strangers and discovered two of them were avoiding each other. But Creators, if she was as nosy as Taemin, and started asking him questions…

He stands and hands what’s left of his soup towards her before she can have a chance to protest. “Here. You can have the rest.”

She blinks down at the bowl, then looks up, a flicker of prideful defiance in her eyes. “I wasn’t _that_ close to starving. You don’t need to give me your meal.”

He shrugs. “I have first watch, and eating too much will make me tired.”

“Thanks.” She takes a deep drink from the broth, not bothering to hide her hunger now, and wipes at her chin. “You’re fine sharing your tent with me, then?”

“I’m fine with it,” Jinki says. There’s another bit of Hyoyeon in her answering smile, and he finds himself returning it. “Just don’t complain when you have difficulty waking me for my watch.”

She snorts. “I know how to deal with that, don’t worry — a bucket of water can wake anyone.”


	6. Chapter 6

Jinki and Seungwan head far enough ahead of them to find the next camp by midnight, and they reach it just in time to still have the advantage of darkness for their approach.

“This group looks to only have two mages and a single warrior, other than whoever is sleeping in the two tents they have set up,” Jinki explains once they reach the nearby ruins. “I can take one mage out with an arrow before he even has a chance to get a barrier in place. We’ll worry about the warriors last.”

Seungwan nods. “And the other mage?”

“I should be able to handle him,” Jonghyun says. “Or at least distract him long enough to let one of you get a blow in.”

“Sounds good.” She smiles briefly at him — he’d gained her trust after healing her, it seems — then turns to Taemin. “I’ll stick with you and clear out one of the tents. I’m not sure how much good I’d be in an open fight without a shield or broadsword.”

“We’ll find you one as soon as we can.” Taemin tucks away the map that had still been in his hand and unsheathes his dagger, and then they split — Jonghyun is left alone, to circle around to the other end of the camp where one of the mages is resting, and the rest of them climb through the runes to keep cover as long as they can before entering the tents.

Jonghyun keeps himself low to the ground and watches anxiously, heart thudding in his chest until he finally sees a quick reflection of an elf’s eyes in the dark. From behind one of the broken columns, Jinki emerges with his bow drawn. The arrow flies in an instant later, piercing perfectly through the back of the Tevinter mage’s neck to exit through his throat.

Jonghyun’s stomach gives a traitorous twist when the mage’s body falls. He knows the man needed to die — deserved it, for being involved in blood magic and one of the Venatori — but did Jinki enjoy killing him? Because he was a mage?

Shouts begin to echo through the camp. He closes his eyes briefly, shaking away his thoughts to concentrate on the pulse of the Fade around him. Reaching into it, he slings a storm of fire towards the mage nearby. The man’s robes catch fire before he can try to counter the spell, and Jonghyun’s chest swells with a mix of sickness and relief when the man screams fall silent a moment later.

He turns his attention towards the two tents set against the ruins. Seungwan emerges from one, holding a sword in one bloody hand and an elaborate wooden shield on the other arm.

She nods to him, lips split wide in a victorious grin, but the moment is cut short when the tent Taemin had slipped into bursts into flames. He stumbles out of it, and another man follows, half-dressed and armed with an twisted ivory staff already glowing with the threat of another spell — a mage they hadn’t counted on fighting.

As quick as he can, Jonghyun throws a barrier towards Taemin, just barely protecting him when surge of lightning hits his back. The force of it still sends Taemin stumbling across the sands, and only Seungwan jumping in front of him with her newfound shield raised stops a second chain of electricity from hitting him.

Jonghyun pants, already drained from the broken barrier he had cast and the earlier fire he had used to kill the first mage. His connection to the Fade is weakening, but he forces himself to reach out for his magic again, this time for ice in hopes that using a new spell will be easier than repeating another.

The jet of cold air he sends forward is weak. The mage’s legs freeze to the ground, but nothing else, and he twists his torso towards Jonghyun with frustrated shout. With a quick jab of his arm, he slings out another spat of lightning that catches Jonghyun off guard.

He hears himself yelp in pain as his hand seizes, then his arm, and he has a half-second to worry about what will happen when the current reaches his chest before it’s cut short.  Stumbling forward, he forces himself to summon a weak barrier, but there’s no need.

Metal juts through the mage’s stomach, and Jonghyun stills, suddenly unable to bring himself to do anything but watch as blood slowly encircles the meeting of blade and robes.

Jonghyun wrenches his eyes away from the wound to the familiar tattooed face behind the man. How had not noticed when Jinki had gotten behind the mage?

Jinki’s gaze meets his, and a shiver runs up his spine. He expects to see nothing but hatred in the twist of Jinki’s lips. Hatred for the mage he’d just killed, and every other of the Venatori that deserved — and it’s there.

But the moment his blade is drawn back, the look is gone, replaced by furrowed brows and a examining stare. The fear he had felt fades, but his heart continues to race when Jinki’s eyes travel over him as he steps forward. “Are you alright?”

Unsure how to respond to the concern, it takes him a moment to find his answer. “I…think so. It only stung my arm a bit.”

Jinki nods, and just like that, the concern frown he had been wearing is gone, replaced by the stoically straight line of his lips. Without another word, he shakes the entrails off his sword and hurries to where Taemin had fallen.

He extends out his hand. “Are you alright?”

“Well, I’m alive.” Taemin laughs, battle-drunk, and dusts off his breeches before taking Jinki’s hand to pull himself up. He pushes singed bangs out of his eyes and bats his eyelashes at Seungwan. “And it’s all thanks to my new hero, Seungwan —- even if she couldn’t be so kind as to help me up.”

She rolls her eyes, but grins. “I wanted to make sure that mage was dead before I worried about you being injured. And it’s not that heroic — this was my life before I caught that blighted sickness. You think they never threw magic at us in the arena?”

Taemin and Seungwan’s good mood must be infectious, because even Jinki gives a small smile. “I did notice you angled your shield downwards, to deflect any other spells he might’ve sent your way. Didn’t think they would teach that technique in Tevinter, considering they want mages to stay in power.”

She laughs and pats Jinki’s back. “Since I made them money doing it, they thought it was worth it.”

The conversation blurs in front of Jonghyun when he realizes his hands are aching. He looks down to find his fists clenched in his robes and loosens them, steadying himself on his staff to keep from losing his balance. His head is in a fog from the aftermath of casting so many spells so quickly, but that’s become a familiar sensation since they’d started to fight the Venatori.

But the sickness in stomach?

He doesn’t know what to call that but jealousy.

He understands why Seungwan and Jinki get on so well — the rush of adrenaline from a battle, and the companionship of all of them being Tevinter and elves. And he knows Jinki well enough to be certain that the man never had a passing fancy for a woman.

But it still hurt to see. Seungwan and Jinki’s friendship could grow easily, because she wasn’t a mage. Though she could wield a sword and dagger as dangerous as any warrior, and likely killed dozens in whatever arenas existed back in Jinki’s home country, Jinki felt safer around _her_ after only a few days than he had around Jonghyun after months. Simply because she lacked magic.

Jonghyun could never dream of touching Jinki so carelessly.

He forces himself to use his staff as a brace and marches off to prepare camp. He should be happy for Jinki, making friends, but he can’t help but be angry when it only served as a reminder of the trust he had never earned from him.

***

All mages visited the Fade in their sleep. In the Circle, they were taught to fear it as a place of demons and illusions.

But to Jonghyun, it had always been an escape — first, from the Circle, and then, from the isolation of the cabin. Spirits were company, and Jonghyun had gotten used to talking to the benevolent ones whenever he had a chance. His favorite spirit — if you could call any spirit a _favorite —_ was a spirit of compassion.  

He’s needed it’s advice often, lately. As deeply as he cares for Jinki, his feelings are shaking now. He wants to be ready to forgive, when this is over. When they’re back at Skyhold or settled into some lonely cabin again, and Jinki can stop thinking in terms of _shems_ and mages and start seeing him as he is again — but he doesn’t know if he can.

His compassion is wearing thin. He’d snapped at Jinki earlier that evening, he’d been avoiding being alone with him for the last week, and he hasn’t felt safe sleeping next to him since their first fight with the Venatori. One more cutting remark from Jinki might break any hope he has at moving past this whole disaster to get back what they had just barely started.

 _And then what?_ Jonghyun thinks. _I’d be alone again_.

The Spirit vanishes from the distance in a sudden burst of light. Eerie green mist of the fade shifts around him, turning darker, but the smell of it becomes familiar, a mix of dirt and herbs and apples and burning wood that makes his heart pang for the cabin he had left behind.

The Desire demon’s presence is familiar. It appeared whenever he got too lonely.

And now, apparently, when his relationship — if it could still be called that — got too strained.

The demon in Jinki’s form doesn’t stop smiling. It would be unsettling, if Jonghyun didn’t miss seeing that expression on him so much.

“You’ve tried this before, demon,” Jonghyun says. “And you know I will refuse you. You can’t give me a person.”

“You’re right. I’ll be honest with you this time,” it says. “ I can’t give you him, as he is.”

A ripple in the air, and Jinki — the _demon_ , Jonghyun reminds himself — is close. Hands on him, warm and sure.  “But I can give you what it’d be like to be _with_ him. All the best parts of him, freely given. Entirely unbroken.”

Magic surges around Jonghyun and forces the demon back. “He’s not broken.”

“Maybe.” The demon tilts his head, and the smile falls briefly, only to return a moment later when he reaches forward to push back Jonghyun’s bangs. “I would be him. But a better version of him. One that loves you fully — your looks, your words, even your limited magical abilities. He’d touch you freely. You’d never hear an angry mutter of _shem_ or _abomination_ from his lips ever again.”

Jonghyun smiles wryly. “He wouldn’t be Jinki, then.”

“What makes him Jinki, hm? His humor? I can have that. His looks? I _already_ have that.” The loose tunic that had covered Jinki vanishes, and Jonghyun forces himself to look away only to find a hand catch his chin. Dark eyes bore into him deeply, and there’s an open want in them that makes him still. Jinki never looked at him like that.

Its voice is lower now. “Wouldn’t you want to try something new? I bet you’d enjoy being inside me.”

Jonghyun shivers, willing the image away as he tries to deflect. “I’m fine without that. I heard there’s some Dalish rule against doing that with a human, anyway.”

It scoffs at him, lips twisting into scowls as it retreats. “Fine. Stay a weak little mage forever. But know I’ll be sticking around, in case you need me.” The vicious grin that pulls its _vallaslin_ tight fits perfectly on Jinki’s face. “You might need the power to save him, anyway. You’re no match for the mages you’ll be fighting.”

Jonghyun startles awake when a burst of wind rustles the canvas of the tent.

He rises from his bedroll, rubbing his eyes, unsure if he wants to try sleeping more. The bottom of his bedroll is soaked through with sweat, and — _Maker_ — that last display of the demon as Jinki, shirtless and freely wanting, has left him hard.

Taemin mumbles a sleepy complaint next to him. His chest aches.

A part of him wants nothing more than to return to Jinki’s tent.

When Taemin had stayed with him, he’d thought that would be the only person to sleep in his bed for years. And then Jinki had shown up.

Jonghyun had never told him how much the visits had meant, but it hardly mattered now. They couldn’t even be around each other.

***

Jinki sighs to let his irritated breath heat hit the cover of his bedroll. His turn on watch ended hours ago, he’s sure — Seungwan is already back from hers — but he still hasn’t managed to sleep at all.

He can’t get the sound of Jonghyun’s pained shout of his head. Or the look in his eyes, when he caught Jinki checking on him — skepticism, as if he thought Jinki wouldn’t care that he’d been hurt. Surely Jonghyun knew that even if they were distant, he wanted him alive and well?

He pushes the edge of his bedroll under his chin and turns onto his other side, only to hum when he catches Seungwan staring at the ceiling, eyes wide open.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks.

“Nope.” She stretches out her arms, then rests them behind her head. “Can’t seem to sleep in the day, though I’m tired as I’ve ever been. And I keep thinking about what I’ll do after this.”

“After this?”

“You know — after we kill the magister behind all this blood magic, or die trying.” She laughs lightly. “I don’t plan on dying, so I have to have a plan for _after_. How to make money, how to get food, that sort of thing…”

Jinki hums. “You’re a strong warrior, so I don’t think you’ll have to worry about much. Those are always needed somewhere.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

Her expression turns thoughtful, and silence falls between them long enough for Jinki to assume she’s finally fallen asleep.

He sighs. As much as he got on with her, because her determination reminded him of Hyoyeon, he never knew what to say when she started asking questions about the world outside of Tevinter, as if he were some kind of expert.

Suddenly, she sits up and nudges his shoulder, her cheeks rising in a smile.

“Hey. You think I could go back with you to your clan? Since they took you in, I assume they’d be open to former slaves joining them. And since you mentioned it, I assume warriors are always wanted.”

Jinki’s stomach sinks. “Maybe you could find a clan to take you in.”

Her brow furrows. “Is yours full or something?”

“No. I lost them.”

“Lost them?” She repeats.

He opens his mouth, ready to explain, but finds only a croak in his throat. But whatever expression his face wears must be answer enough, because her eyes widen, and she clenches her fist in her sheets.

“Maker, I…” She shakes her head. “Wrong god to mention, sorry. I didn’t mean it like that, and I didn’t know…”

“It’s alright,” Jinki says, though his chest is still stinging from the reminder. “It’s why I’m here. After my clan was gone, Jonghyun suggested we find Taemin, since I’ve known him for so long — then, I found out the Venatori were related to my clan’s slaughter, and we ended up with the Inquisition.”

“…I see.” She lays back down. Another silent minute passes before she speaks. “So we’re nearly in the same position, then.”

The statement catches him off guard. “What do you mean?”

“Trying to decide what to do with our freedom. I feel like there’s so much ahead of me now, and I’m not sure what to do with it. What’d you plan on, before you joined your clan?”

“I don’t know,” Jinki answers, entirely honest. He barely remembers his first days of freedom. They’d been starving, avoiding the main roads for fear of being caught, and that’d been all he thought of until they crossed the Tevinter border. And even then, that yawning emptiness he thought of as the future had been pushed it to the back of his mind

“We didn’t have a plan. We just…left. Then we ran into the Lavellan clan.” He smiles at the memory of Hyoyeon in the woods. “I fell in love with the Dalish. Living in the wilderness, having traditions and community entirely separate from everything _shems_ have done. I knew I wanted that life badly, from the moment I realized what it was. I learned how to shoot a bow, how to hunt, listened to every fireside tale I could to learn who our gods and goddesses are…” he trails off when his eyes begin to sting and touches the marking on his chin. “I dedicated myself to it to earn my _valasslin_.”

“You really loved it, huh?” She smiles softly, and he nods. “Do you think you’ll join another clan after this?”

Another question that leaves him clueless. “Not all clans are as friendly to outsiders as mine was.”

“Would you really be considered an outsider? I mean, you’re clearly Dalish.”

“Yes, but…” He frowns as he tries to understand his own reasoning.

Why had he never considered it a possibility? As Seungwan had said, he wasn’t only Tevinter anymore — he was Dalish, and he had the _vallaslin_ to prove it.

Yet, he’d never considered finding another clan. Perhaps at first, he’d been too numb from the loss of the people he considered his family to think of it, but even as he came out of that fog, it never occurred to him. But even in Skyhold, where _shems_ surrounded him at every turn, and he’d felt entirely isolated, he didn’t think of joining another clan.

He’d only thought of staying by Jonghyun’s side.

His stomach drops.

Of course he could never imagine life with a new clan, when he’d anchored himself to the mage so completely. They would never accept a new member with a _shem_ lover — he’d been lucky no one but Joonmyeon or Hyoyeon asked questions when he’d disappear for days.

A wave of nausea rolls his stomach as he tries to envision of the future ahead of him. Would he give up Jonghyun for a clan he wasn’t even part of? One without Hyoyeon and Joonmyeon and Jungah?

His stomach churns again. He wouldn’t have to make that decision, though, would he? Jonghyun had decided for both of them.

A sudden hand on his knee makes him jolt.

“Hey.” Seungwan frowns at him. “You alright?”

“I just…” he swallows. “I never thought of finding another clan, until now. But maybe I should.”

“You don’t sound happy about it.” She observes.

He looks down at his lap, unsure what to say. How could he even explain that imagining his future as part of a different clan is painful? Not even because he misses his old one, though he does — but because he’d felt safest by Jonghyun’s side, and he’d already ruined any chance he had of having that permanently?

“Is it because of the mage?”

His head snaps up. “What makes you think it’s about him?”

“It’s a little obvious you have feelings for him.” She shrugs. “During the last fight, you seemed more worried over him than Taemin. And you mentioned coming to the Inquisition with him just a moment ago. That, plus the fact you two refuse to share a tent—”

Bitterness rises in his throat again, and he finds himself snapping. “ _I_ never minded sharing with him.”

“…So he rejected you?”

Jinki winces at her bluntness. “I suppose so. He’s pulled away entirely.”

“And you’ve tried to talk with him about it? Whatever’s making him do that?”

He flushes. “No.”

“Maker, and I thought nobles were the only ones that acted helpless all the time.” She lets out a long sigh as she rubs her temples. “You should talk to him. What’s the point of freedom if you don’t pursue what you want?”

Her question fills the hollows in his chest with a heavy weight. The canvas walls of the tent claw at the edges of his vision, and the conviction behind her question suddenly seems threatening. He finds himself rising to his knees before he can think. “I’m going to get some fresh air.”

He doesn’t hear her response, and his fingers shake when he hooks the tent flap closed behind him.

What did he want to do with his freedom?

He’d never bothered thinking about the future. Even when he’d dreamed of escaping Tevinter, he’d never dreamed of what he’d do outside of it. All that mattered was that his present pain would end, and the magister could no longer touch him.

By chance, he’d come upon the Dalish, and those years with the clan had been the happiest and easiest of his life. He’d been satisfied, having a place and a home, even though he’d been excluded from all woodworking in the clan for being born outside it. He could hunt for the clan, whittle scraps for himself, and trade stories at the campfire with Joonmyeon and Hyoyeon and Jungah.

It was easy to pretend that’s all there was to life, when his closest friends were women and Joonmyeon had promised himself to a man in a distant clan on the other end of the continent. Then Taemin had come back, and Jonghyun had felt safe, and he’d felt that heat across his skin that frightened him as much as it excited him.

Creators, he’d felt more at home in Jonghyun’s cabin than anywhere else. For all he was a _shem_ , he’d taken everything about Jinki without question, and only offered more openness in return — the comfort of the clan, but without the watching eyes of the elves who would always look at him as tainted for being raised in slavery — and the safety he felt with Taemin, but with a spark that made him ache to look and touch in ways he’d never felt with anyone else.

Realizing he hasn’t moved since he exited the tent, he forces himself away before Seungwan can ask questions, only to turn and nearly run into Taemin returning to his own tent.

Taemin must be able to read the need for silence on him. Their eyes meet briefly, and then Taemin breaks his gaze away, giving only a small smile before he brushes past to continue on to his tent.

Jinki’s heart races when Taemin disappears inside. If it’d been Taemin’s turn on watch, then Jonghyun would be next.

As if drawn out by his thought, Jonghyun stumbles out from the tent, squinting his eyes against the noon sun. It takes him a moment for his vision to adjust, but when he realizes Jinki is near, his eyes widen, and for a moment, Jinki sees a flicker of hope in them.

It leaves the instant their gazes meet.

Jonghyun’s mouth straightens, eyes going hard, and there’s no sign of hesitation in his step when he turns to walk towards the high sand dune they’d been using for their watch post that day.

His throat constricts at the sight of Jonghyun’s back. Why did it suddenly hurt more than before?

He turns on his heel to walk in the opposite direction, chest heavy with a new sense of loss.

Seungwan was right. He was wasting his freedom, acting as if he were helpless to do anything about his desire for Jonghyun, when he’d been dodging conversation with him since their first fight.

Maybe he could fix things, if he just showed a willingness to speak. But would Jonghyun even listen to him now?

He’d never worried about rejection from Jonghyun before. He’d never opened up to him truly, not since they’d shared those drinks and that first kiss — all their days spent together could be summed up in quiet glances, little gestures, and the burning desire he had to press his body against Jonghyun’s. He’d never shared that with anyone else, and thought that enough to convey his feelings.

But Creators, it wasn’t, was it? They haven’t had a moment together in days, or truly talked for weeks — all because he tried to shut down any discussion of their disagreements. The only words they exchanged since Seungwan had joined them were in the last battle, and that was all born of necessity.

As if guided by his thoughts, his pacing draws him towards Jonghyun. Wandering in circles around their camp somehow had turned into wandering around Jonghyun’s watchpoint, despite his start in the opposite direction, and he’s directly behind the mage now.

Jonghyun knows he’s there — he gave one glance over his shoulder before staring back at the sands ahead — and the tension in his shoulders seems to deepen every second Jinki lingers.

Jinki chews his lip and tries to think quickly. He’s so used to Jonghyun starting and carrying the conversation. What could he start with? Jonghyun always offered something to show he cared — food, or a potion, or a simple listening ear — maybe he could do the same.

He walks forward until he’s next to Jonghyun and looks at him from the side of his eye.

His features are the same — a slight and delicate curve to his wide nose, long lashes, and full lips — but there’s more lines by his eyes and mouth than he remembers, and the skin he remembers turning to a golden tan under the sun looks nearly sallow. His exhaustion is plain, and Jinki finds himself speaking without thought.

“You look sick.”

Jonghyun glances at him sidelong, almost offended, and Jinki realizes his opening statement had sounded more like an insult than a caring observation.

“I mean — you don’t look well. Are you getting enough sleep? I know you tend to be tired after a battle, and you might need to use even more…” Flustered, he struggles over the word magic, and ends up only clearing his throat. “You might need more energy for the next fight. I could take your turn on watch, if you want to rest.”

Jonghyun huddles down into his cloak, as if that could hide the dark circles under his eyes. “I’m fine.”

Jinki frowns. “Are you sure? Taemin said the next camp is likely the last. It’s a magister we’ll be going up against next.”

That draws a reaction. Plain fear, evident in the clench of Jonghyun’s fingers in the sands and the crinkle of his eye.

Jinki had made another mistake. He pinches the skin of his palm, trying to think again of something to say, but is interrupted by a shaky laugh for Jonghyun. “I understand since I’m the only mage in our group, you think I need to be at my best, but I don’t think any amount of rest will make me strong enough to take a magister down.”

Jinki frowns. “They’re not all as powerful as they make them sound in the south. Though they’re all mages, some of only become magisters through inheritance or political maneuvering. Some are weak, despite all their schooling. The magister that owned me wasn’t…”

His throat catches on his words when he realizes what he’d begun to say. Jonghyun’s head turns to him. His expression is neutral — as neutral as Jonghyun could ever make it, when his eyes give away everything — but the mix of curiosity and sympathy in his gaze nearly makes Jinki wilt. “Do you think he might be here?”

“No. I doubt the magister here is the one that owned me.” Jinki swallows, forces himself to continue, if only to keep Jonghyun’s attention on him. “It’s unlikely he’d ever join the Venatori. He considered himself a good man — he was progressive compared to most nobles — taught us all to read, rarely beat us, never killed a slave that I knew of….I don’t think he’d join up with some Tevinter supremacy cult.”

He smiles wryly. “But I still keep thinking one of the Venatori mages might be him. I’m afraid of it — I don’t want to see him. But I’m almost hoping for it, too. Then I’d have the chance to kill him myself.”

Jonghyun stays quiet, and Jinki feels a pang of sudden self-consciousness.

“I suppose you think of as me bloodthirsty savage for that.”

“No, I don’t,” Jonghyun says, and the look in his eyes is honest. “You have every right to kill him.”

Jinki blinks at Jonghyun openly, unable to hide his surprise. “…You don’t even know all he did.”

“I don’t, no. But I can guess, based on what Taemin had told me, and the way you acted sometimes when we — “ He stops abruptly, and Jinki freezes, not wanting to hear his next words aloud, but Jonghyun only clears his throat and looks away before continuing on. “Someone like that doesn’t deserve the life they were given.”

Jinki swallows. There’s sureness in Jonghyun’s gaze, more than he ever would have expected when discussing ending someone’s life. Somehow, a part of him had forgotten that Jonghyun’s kindness was not a blanket of goodwill applied to everyone, no matter what they did. He thinks back to the time in the forest — their first hunt, where Jonghyun had let Jinki kill the trapped hare, but was willing to do it if Jinki couldn’t; and now, in the regular battles with the Venatori — Jonghyun would do what was necessary.

Jonghyun is soft. Soft, but not weak.

He watches Jonghyun’s lips shift slightly, and stares, caught off guard by every feature as if he were falling for him all over again

Without thinking, he reaches out and covers Jonghyun’s hand with his own. Jonghyun looks down at them, but doesn’t pull away — only observes, as if he’s trying to understand how their hands could be touching when they’ve kept so much space between them for days.

After what feels like forever, Jonghyun looks up, and Jinki allows himself to brush his fingertips over the dried cracks of Jonghyun’s knuckles to link their fingers together.

Jonghyun’s back straightens, and a flush rises to his cheeks. “Would you still be alright with me taking you up on your offer?”

Jinki blinks out of the daze he’d fallen into from their contact. “Hm?”

“You taking my watch shift.” He pulls away his hand and to scratch at the back of his neck. “…I am actually quite tired.”

“Then you should rest.”

“I suppose I will.” Jonghyun gives Jinki a small, thankful smile, then stands and brushes off his robes. “Well, feel free to wake me if it turns out you need the sleep.”

Jinki nods, but his chest still squeezes painfully when Jonghyun turns to leave. It’s hard to resist the urge to follow, after Jonghyun had allowed him to hold his hand, but he forces himself to ignore it.

He shouldn’t need to rush things. Everything between them had built up slowly, after all, between the days Jinki had spent away from Jonghyun’s cabin and the months it had taken for him to get comfortable sharing a single bed.

The time on watch passes slowly and gives him too much time to think about Jonghyun and the fight ahead of them. His shadow shrinks as the sun lowers in front of him, and the direct light begins to sting at his cheeks despite the cold. To pass the time, he breaks off a branch from a nearby tree and begins whittling it down with his knife, trying to smooth out the roughest and weakest parts of the wood. He’d like to carve it into brooch, if he can — he remembers that Jonghyun had brought all the figures he’d made, on their trip south, though they were impractical little things, and thinks something wearable would be even more valuable. He doesn’t know if Jonghyun would want it, or if he’d even accept a gift when they’d only just begun to talk again, but the thought of Jonghyun possibly smiling when he fixes it to his cloak is enough to keep him occupied through the long hours as he waits for the sun to set.

When the moons rise, and all of them wake and disemble their tents, they begin their nightly trek westward. Usually, Jinki takes point with Taemin, but this time, he lets Seungwan walk ahead of him so he linger in the back with Jonghyun.

As subtly as he’d tried to make the shift in position, the change is noticed. Both Seungwan and Taemin send him looks — Taemin, a nearly lecherous grin, and Seungwan, an encouraging smile — and make sure to leave them space.

Jonghyun doesn’t react, other than to give a small nod of acknowledgement when Jinki falls into step beside him. The silence is almost comforting, and certainly familiar — so many of their days back in the cabin had been spent in wordless enjoyment of each other’s companionship — and the ease of it assures him that Jonghyun is at least open to his efforts now.

When Jonghyun’s stomach rumbles, he passes over his bag of dried fruits and nuts without a second thought, which earns him a shy smile that makes his stomach flip.

He forces himself to step away before he can give in to the urge to kiss Jonghyun. There’s still too much tension between them. Whenever Jonghyun thinks he’s not looking, he feels eyes on him, and each time he glances back, catches the puzzled and conflicted frown he wears before it fades away.

It’s enough to keep him from even reaching for his hand, as badly as he wants to when it sinks in that this might be their last full night of travel. He wants nothing more than to press himself against Jonghyun, lose himself in _that_ rather than thoughts of the upcoming battle before he loses the chance to do it ever again, but it would only hurt the progress he’d made.

He’s so lost in his thoughts that he misses Taemin’s raised-arm signal for them to stop, and only halts when Jonghyun’s arm blocks his path.

He stumbles forward. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Jonghyun pulls his hand back quickly from Jinki, but not quick enough for them to avoid a raised brow from Taemin when he turns back to them.

Before Taemin can open his mouth to ask about them, Seungwan speaks in a hushed tone. “We think we saw a big group of Venatori ahead of us.”

Taemin purses his lips, clearly displeased at being interrupted, but decides their mission is more important. “I’ll climb something to get a better look, but they look to be a half-night of travel away, If we continue, we’d get there by dawn, and I’m not sure we want to do that.”

“We shouldn’t,” Seungwan agrees. “Keeping our attacks at night gives us an advantage, considering all of the Venatori are human. Their vision is shit in the dark.”

“So what now?” Jonghyun asks.

“We wait.” Taemin shrugs. “If we approach any closer, they might spot us in the day. I say we set up our tents to save us the sun fatigue and hide out in them, until sunset. Then we’ll head to meet them, and well…we’ll hope for the best, after that.”

“Rest sounds like a good idea,” Jinki says, and they all share a solemn nod.

The realization that this might be the last leg of their journey together seems to sink in as they set up their tents. Even if he weren’t feeling it himself, he can tell from the way all of them have fallen into the habits that make them most comfortable that they’re dreading what lies ahead. He and Jonghyun fall into silence, while Taemin begins boasting as he works, doing his best to make an eager audience out of Seungwan’s initial _hmph_ of skepticism.

Through a mutual decision, they decide against having someone on watch so they can all rest. He assumes Seungwan would be sharing a tent with him as she had every other time they’d stopped to rest, but she follows after Taemin and Jonghyun into theirs.

He pauses, waiting a moment to see if she’d leave, then enters his own tent alone and sets up his bedroll. He slips inside and pulls the thick wool over his ears to try and block out the sound of Seungwan and Taemin’s voices. He would chastise Taemin for keeping him up, but he knows well that nothing energized him quite like spinning stories, and he wanted them all to be in their best form, even if it means going without sleep.

The problem with that is that it leaves him with too much time to think about the magister they’ll be facing the next day.

He knows the magister won’t be his own. It’d be someone worse — someone capable of buying dozens of slaves and willing to sacrifice them for magical power. Some could extend their power over blood to bend wills and temporarily control bodies — he’d run into that before, as much as he’d tried to forget it — but even those men had been unwilling to kill more than one or two at a time.

Suddenly, he hears movement, and someone pauses outside of the entrance to his tent. He startles, heart pounding as his hand hand instinctively goes for the knife beside his bedroll. Maybe not having someone on watch had been a mistake—

The flap of the tent opens. “…Is it alright if I stay in here tonight?”

At the sound of Jonghyun’s voice, Jinki sits up, wide eyes betraying his surprise. A tense moment of silence passes between them before being interrupted by a loud streak of laughter from the other tent.

His ears twitch. No wonder Jonghyun didn’t want to stay in there.

Jinki clears his throat. “Are they, um…”

“No.” Jonghyun answers, then grimaces. “Not yet, at least. They’re flirting now, though — and Taemin’s flattery is nauseating when you’re not on the receiving end of it.”

A soft laugh escapes him. “Yes, I can imagine.”

A brief smile from Jonghyun, and then it’s quiet again. He turns his head when Jonghyun steps fully inside and lays his bedroll across the ground, pretending not to watch every movement for some sign he might want to share.

All he can think of is the warmth of Jonghyun’s body, inches away but still untouchable. Even when he refused to speak, Jonghyun had kept him steady, given him anything he thought he needed or wanted. He wants to reach out. How had he gotten so reliant on the contact? They’d rarely slept together in Jonghyun’s cabin. But he’d spent every night of their travel to Skyhold and the brief time there pressed against him, and now that he’s realized how badly he wants Jonghyun, it’s hard to be without him.

His heart thuds as the ghost of the sensation washes over him, making the absence of it ache.

On impulse, he turns towards him

“Jonghyun, I…” he stops, struggling with where to start. He’d meant to let Jonghyun take the next step, and there’s too much he wants to open up about at once — the images that have always replay in his mind and his dreams, his fear that every _shem_ they passed can sense what he’s been used for and do the same to him, the dread that Tevinter would always hang over him and drag him back…

He’d covered some of it, the last time they spoke, when he’d described the magister that owned him. But he’d still been dancing around the the issue between them — his fear of mages and magic that lead him to support the circles. Realizing Jonghyun’s breath has hung on his answer, he spits out the first words that come to mind. “I’ve been an ass.”

Jonghyun huffs. Jinki isn’t sure if it’s from surprise or disappointment, and the mage makes no move to turn towards him.

“I know I’ve hurt you. And I don’t want to lose you,” Jinki continues. “You're…all I have, in a way.”

A long pause. Then, Jonghyun’s voice, sharp and bitter. “Is that the only reason you care?”

“No.” Jinki bites his lip and presses the heel of his hands against his eyelids. He’d used the wrong words, yet again, and he still isn’t sure he can find the right ones. “Creators, I’m not good at this.”

“I’ve noticed.”

A long silence follows Jonghyun’s remark before he sighs. It’s a soft sound, more resigned than resentful, and Jinki’s chest lifts with hope when he sees Jonghyun begin to turn towards him, only to freeze when he stops halfway.

“I’m not sure we’re good for each other. You, who hates mages, and me, someone who spent years in hiding because I couldn’t stand that the world hates me for my magic.” Jonghyun laughs softly. “How did we even become a _thing?_ ”

Jinki ignores the sting in his eyes, and the waiver in his voice when he speaks. “Because you’re not only a mage. You’re kind, and patient, and—”

“My magic is a part of me, though. You realize that, don’t you?” Jonghyun sits up, and there’s frustration etched in the lines of his eyes that makes Jink quiet and listen. “I’m careful using it around you, because I know you hate it, but it’s still _there_. I never wanted magic, but I can’t change that I’m a mage, and when I hear how you think of other mages…”

Jonghyun takes a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment before continuing on.

“When you called that mage an abomination and killed him, at the first camp we attacked — you scared me. I know Tevinter was awful, and you had to kill that Venatori mage — we would have died, if you hadn’t. I certainly would have.” Jonghyun bites his lip. “But you called him an abomination. And you called _me_ that, too, when we first met.”

“You aren’t — I don’t see you that way.” Jinki swallows. “I was wrong to do that, back then. I didn’t know you.”

“You _were_ wrong.” Jonghyun stares him down. There’s a fierceness in his gaze that Jinki meets, but it softens as it lingers, until Jonghyun turns his head away with a sigh. “And Maker, Jinki — I want to be with you, but I don’t want to be with someone who hates what I am, or thinks I should be locked up for it, or thinks every mage is an _abomination_ until proven otherwise.”

“I don’t want to be that kind of person,” Jinki says. “I…want to be the kind of person you want.”

He’d thought the statement was simple, but it seems to catch Jonghyun off guard. The stubbornness in his shoulders relaxes. “Jinki, I’m not…” he hesitates. “I’m not trying to demand you to change. I think you’re wrong about Circles, and you shouldn’t hate mages, but I’m not going to ask that of you. We just might not work.”

“There’s change through submission, and there’s change through learning. I think I would know the difference well.” He lifts his chin, daring Jonghyun to interrupt him, but he only gets a nod for him to go on. “I meant what I said. I changed my beliefs when I joined the Dalish, because I wanted to be part of them. I respected them, just as I respect you, and want to be with you. I can open my mind on magic.”

“I don’t want you to just copy my beliefs to be with me — I want to know what you genuinely feel.” Jonghyun frowns. “And I don’t need to know about your past, with magic or anything else. I just need to know how you feel in the present, if we’re supposed to have this work.”

“But…I think you were right. Mages should not be imprisoned for being born with magic, just as I shouldn’t be imprisoned for carrying a sword.” He takes a deep breath. “I was wrong to support the Circles, when you’ve shared some of what they’re like before. Though I don’t think mages should be allowed to do whatever they like, as they are in Tevinter—”

Jonghyun crosses his arms. “And you know even I wouldn’t favor that.”

“I know. And I’m sorry I acted as if you would.”

The direct apology takes the edge off of Jonghyun’s stare, and he lets his arms fall by his side as he sighs, long and strained. “By the Maker, it shouldn’t be this hard to be with someone.”

Jinki’s lip twitches in amusement, and he can’t help the familiar response from escaping. “You don’t believe in the Maker.”

“No, I don’t,” Jonghyun confirms, a small smile pulling at his cheeks. He takes a deep breath and meets Jinki’s eyes. “And even though it’s hard, I still want to be with you.”

Jinki’s throat catches. He’s awful at finding words himself, but he can do reciprocation. “I want you as well.”

Jonghyun’s fingers curl in his bedroll, and Jinki leans forward.

If they needed to speak more, he’s certain Jonghyun would turn away — but he doesn’t move back. Only stares, and waits, same as he had every time he’d let Jinki kiss him before. They’re close enough to see the reflection of his markings in Jonghyun’s eyes, and it feels better than he’d imagined or remembered, to have Jonghyun’s breath mix with his again.

He lifts his hand to Jonghyun’s cheek, holding him gently as he tries to convey everything when he finally closes the gap between their lips, and only pulls away when he feels Jonghyun shiver.

“ _Ma vhenan_ ,” he murmurs, tilting his head to let their lips brush again, but Jonghyun jolts.

Jinki frowns and pulls back. Jonghyun’s cheeks and ears are a baffling shade of pink, and he’d never reacted so strongly to the nickname before, even in bed. “Should I not call you that?”

“No, I…” Jonghyun looks down, almost guilty. “I know what it really means. I asked one of my old friends from the Circle.”

“Oh.” Jinki flushes, feeling caught. “I see.”

He trails his hand over Jonghyun’s hip, unsure what to say now that his feelings are more out in the open. “Does that meaning…bother you?”

“No.” Jonghyun looks down and smooths out his bedroll to find something to avoid Jinki’s stare. “I like it. I just wish I could call you some secret name for my heart or my love to get back at you — considering you lied about what it meant — but unfortunately I only speak common, and you already know that.” He sighs. “I will find something nice to call you someday, though.”

“I’m sorry I lied,” Jinki apologizes, but smiles, unable to help his elation at hearing Jonghyun ramble again. He runs his nose along Jonghyun’s jaw. “It’s good to hear you babble again.”

He hadn’t thought it possible, but Jonghyun turns an even deeper shade of red. “I was hardly _babbling_ — just complaining that I don’t have a nickname for you.”

Jinki laughs softly. “You don’t need one — my name is fine. I like how you say it.”

Jonghyun huffs, but offers no protest when Jinki tilts him down towards the bedroll. He presses his lips against Jonghyun’s neck. He can feel Jonghyun’s pulse race beneath his skin. It speeds when he slips a hand along his waist.

Jonghyun gasps. It’s a pleased sound — familiar and heated — but Jinki’s mind flashes back to the last time he’d heard Jonghyun lose his breath, when the Venatori mage had wounded him. His chest clenches. The next mage they’d take on would be a magister, more dangerous than any they had faced so far.

He doesn’t want to miss a chance at having this again.

He slips his knee between Jonghyun’s leg, ignoring the bedroll in the way. When he leans his weight forward, he earns another gasp, and Jonghyun swears, one hand clutching at Jinki’s shoulder hard enough for him to feel his nails through his shirt.

Suddenly, Jonghyun pushes on his chest. “Maker, Jinki, wait —” He stops to catch his breath, and it takes him a moment to find his words. “I’m not ready.”

Jinki swallows. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Jonghyun smiles softly, then hides his head against Jinki’s neck to let out a sigh. “I normally would want this, but right now, I just…” His fingers curl in Jinki’s shirt. “I need time, to move past everything.”

“I understand.” Jinki lets go of where he had placed his hands on Jonghyun’s waist and moves back, ready to slip back into his own bedroll, but is stopped by a hand tugging on his shoulder.

“You don’t have to go — we can still share a bedroll, if you like.” His cheeks darken. “I would appreciate the company.”

Jinki smiles, reworking his way back to Jonghyun’s side. “You’re sure?”

Jonghyun nods and reaches for his hand. He holds it tight as he lifts the top cover of the bedroll as an invitation, and Jinki joins him without another word.

His heart thuds loudly in his chest. More and more of their bodies press together, until Jonghyun’s head is level with his collarbone and their feet are tangled together to fit both of their legs inside the bedroll. After a moment of hesitation, he slips an arm over Jonghyun’s waist, and when Jonghyun hums, his lips brush the _vallasslin_ on his chin in response.  
  
Jinki lets his palm flatten against the small of Jonghyun’s back to bring him closer. “I missed this more than I wanted to admit.”  
  
Jonghyun’s response is a quiet whisper against his neck,

“Me too.”


	7. Chapter 7

For the first time in weeks, Jinki wakes fully rested. Somehow, the few hours of light sleep he had gotten while sharing a bedroll with Jonghyun had helped more than any of the longer days he’s spent sleeping alone. Jonghyun shakes him awake, and they exit the tent together, earning a raised brow from Taemin.

“I hope you two are well rested. We’re about to throw ourselves at the worst bastard we’ve faced yet.”

Seungwan gives Taemin a light shove, but there’s a teasing smile on her lips when she nods to Jinki. “Are you ready? I was thinking we should scout ahead to make our plans — there’s an old ruin far from the one they’re set up against we can climb. The others can wait for us closer to the Venatori camp.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jinki agrees, all too eager to leave before Taemin can tease him further.

Seungwan jogs ahead of him, towards the ruin, and he exchanges a quick look with Jonghyun before he follows. trying not to listen to the voices left behind him. But once they’re out of earshot, Seungwan tilts her head at him, eyes gleaming in the dark.

“Seems like you earned the mage’s trust back.”

“Somewhat, I hope.” Jinki sighs. “Talking helped.”

She smiles at him, and there’s a tinge of pride in it. “I’m glad. You already look less tense.”

Jinki frowns at himself. “I am, as foolish as it is, considering what we’ll be up against today…”

“I don’t think it’s foolish. The risk of dying only makes it all the more important that you sorted things out with him.” Her grin flattens into a stern line. “I hope we make it, but even if I don’t, I’m certainly glad I got to experience freedom for a bit.”

His throat tightens. Somehow, her mentioning the possibility of their deaths aloud made it all the more real.

He’d accepted the risk of his own long ago. But Taemin’s? Or Jonghyun’s?

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you — I’m sure you’ll be fine. If things go horribly, we can always try and run for it. We probably have more endurance than any pampered mage would.”

“I’m not just worried about me. 

“Ah.” Her expression softens. “I’ll try and watch his back for you. Taemin’s too.”

“Thank you.” He clears his throat. They still have a while of the walk left, and he doesn’t to answer any more questions, so he asks his own. “Did you and Taemin rest at all last night?”

“Not really.” She laughs. “We talked until sundown, then took a short nap.”

“Just talked?”

“Yes, _just_ talked.” She rolls her eyes, sensing the intention of his question, but smiles softly. “He’s fun, and I’m certain he’s a good man, but I don’t want anything with anyone for a long while.” She pauses for a long moment. “Belonging to myself is still new to me.”

“…I can understand that,” Jinki answers.

After that, they fall quiet. Only sand moving under the soft night winds fill the silence until they reach the ruins.

Jinki squints and looks up, mentally mapping the footholds and resting spots on the statue. “You ready?”

“Yeah, but you should go first. I’m guessing the whole Dalish thing where you live in forests made you better at climbing.”

Jinki laughs softly, but begins the climb without complaint. Seungwan follows after him, and quietly, they make their way up the broken dragon statue, changing their path halfway up to use the twisted and protruding head for cover to prevent any Venatori scouts from noticing them.

When they reach the top of the statue, the view gives them a full scope of the Venatori camp and the nearby ruins. Cages are positioned at the bottom of the nearest cliff, surrounded by several tents. A few Venatori soldiers and mages in plain robes walk between them, gestures relaxed as they move from one campfire to another to socialize with others working the night watch. He starts to count them, only to lose the number when Seungwan grasps his elbow suddenly.

“Do you see that open cage?” Seungwan murmurs. “…They’ve already started.”

Jinki snaps his attention back to the cliff wall, now noticing the open door and the dark stain sitting in front of it. An arm, gashed open along the center from wrist to elbow, hangs out of the cage to point at a splattered trail of blood that leads across the sands.

Jinki’s stomach churns. A bleeding wound, meant to drain as much as possible, just as his magister had given Taemin when he’d wanted his blood for a ritual.

Seungwan’s grip on his arm tightens, but he’s too numb to be bothered. “I thought we had more time, Jinki — they’re not at the fortress. Why are they killing us already?”

Jinki swallows. He knows the purpose — it was hard to forget the way the magister that had owned him radiated strength for nights after he’d scarred Taemin to use his blood.

“Blood magic can be used to raise someone’s power permanently, in some rituals,” he explains. “I would guess the magister is increasing his power before whatever spell they plan to use on the fortress.”

“Shit,” Seungwan swears. She releases him to wipe sweat off her palms. “Do you think they’ve done it already?”

“I don’t know.” Jinki begins to look around the camp, hoping to find the magister, only for his eyes to catch on a lone figure they’d somehow manage to miss trailing through the depths of the ruins. “Could that be him?”

Seungwan squints at the man. “Black robes, and some kind of book under his arm…that’s likely the magister.”

“Then we should hurry. If he’s in the ruins, he’s likely going to use them for a ritual, so he might not have done it yet.”

Seungwan nods, saying nothing more before quickly returning to the side of the statue they had climbed to begin their descent. He follows after her, trying to keep his mind on the ground instead of the battle ahead. If they were lucky, the magister would be a weak one, promoted to the rank only due to his birth.

And if they weren’t lucky…

He’d deal wtih that as best he can.

When they reach the bottom of the statue, Jonghyun and Taemin are waiting for them, brows knitted.

“So, what’s the plan?” Taemin asks.

Seungwan relays the positions. “The magister is separate from the rest of them. We saw him alone in the ruins, and we think he’s going to do some spell to power himself up soon.”

“And the rest of the Venatori?”

“All gathered at camp. There’s three cages of slaves, and at least a dozen mages and soldiers.”

Jonghyun looks sick. “We can’t take on that many.”

“Their numbers are too large, for sure,” Seungwan says. “But if we free the captives first, we can use the confusion and those that’ll stick around to help us fight.”

Taemin frowns. “And the magister? We can’t just leave him there to make whatever evil shit he’s working on.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Jinki volunteers. “If whatever he’s doing starts to look complete, I can distract him with arrows or something.”

Jonghyun stares at him intently. “Are you sure you should go alone?”

“I’m the quietest of all you, and the more people are with you when you free the slaves, the better luck you’ll have convincing them to fight,” Jinki says. “And you’ll need someone to cover you in case you have trouble breaking open the cages.”

Jonghyun’s lips thin in muted worry, but Seungwan nods, seeing the logic. “Jinki’s right. The camp will be the big fight, and we should all be there for that — the magister will likely come our way once he hears the fighting break out. Jinki can try and distract him until we have the camp under control, and then we’ll take the bastard down as a group.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Taemin pats them both on the back and grins, but there’s a worried strain to his brow when he looks up to meet Jinki’s eyes. “Don’t do anything stupid and try to kill the bastard without us, okay? You’re just there to keep an eye on him.’

Jinki rolls his eyes in mock annoyance at Taemin’s concern. “I know.”

Taemin huffs in amusement, then lowers himself to sneak into the direction of the Venatori camp with Seungwan following behind him.

Jonghyun doesn’t follow. He watches Taemin and Seungwan walk ahead of him with furrowed brows, before quickly turning to Jinki.

Before Jinki can think of something to say, Jonghyun reaches out and catches his hand, grasping it tightly as his throat shifts with a hard swallow. “Be careful. Alright?”

Jinki’s chest tightens, and he slides his thumb over the back of Jonghyun’s wrist. All he can do is squeeze back and hope that’s enough. “You too.”

When they open their hands to part, Jonghyun’s fingertips linger against his palm before sliding fully away.

He watches to make sure Jonghyun catches up to Seungwan and Taemin, then turns to head for the ruins.

Like all things of Tevinter make, the ruins are littered with towering statues of dragons at every turn. Half of them are broken, but the other half are still intact enough to watch Jinki through stony eyes as he approaches the crumbled archway to enter the ruins.

There’s a palpable difference in the air the moment he passes through the stone entrance. He can’t describe it — it’s nothing in scent, or sight, or even taste — but every breath he takes makes the hair on the back of his neck rise further, until his skin is entirely covered in goosebumps from the thought of the blood that might have been spilled here centuries ago. A solemn silence hangs over the broken columns and platforms that seems to drown out the whispers of sands that sneak through the cracks and the soft crinkles of grains beneath his feet. Only the scrape of the magister’s staff against the ground interrupts the quiet, and it grows louder as Jinki hurries to reach the open room he’d begun his ritual in.

Jinki’s stomach churns at the sharp smell of iron. The floor is already half-painted in blood, curved in sickeningly precise lines to fill in the grooves across the platform’s floor.

The man is concentrated over the book in his hand, eyebrows knitted together as he murmurs to himself over a page. His face is handsome in the Tevinter noble fashion, with a straight nose and a smooth-cut jaw, but Jinki knows better than to judge him by his looks. When he turns to return this work, stopping to dip his staff in a basin of blood, Jinki ducks behind the column, heart racing with fear that he’d been spotted.

Jinki forces himself to breathe slowly before lowering himself to a crouch and heading forward for a better vantage point. All he has to do is watch the magister until the numbers are in their favor. And the man is concentrated on laying the paint for his rune.

At a sudden boom in the distance, the magister’s head snaps up from his work. Jinki swallows — that must be Jonghyun breaking open the cages — and hopes the magister will write off the noise as a stray spell and go back to work.

He peeks behind the corner to check the magister’s reaction. His lip is curled in annoyance, and he quickly adjusts his staff in his hands, shaking off the excess blood as he heads towards an exit that would lead him to the Venatori camp. “Of course, the _one_ night I need silence to concentrate, those low-bred bastards have to start wasting their magic again…”

Jinki’s heart thuds loud in his chest as he watches, hoping uselessly for the man to turn around. The slaves should be freed by now, but he can hear fighting still, and if the magister reaches the camp before the rest of the Venatori are taken out, their chance of winning will be gone. Jonghyun is their only mage, and he doesn’t stand a chance against the magister alone — they need the numbers to have any chance of winning against the man.

He needs to distract him.

He draws his knife and dashes it against the nearest column, causing a rain of dust and sand that makes the magister stop. A rustle of robes tells him the magister has turned to him.

His heart pounds.

The sound of boots on sand warns him of the approach, and Jinki knows he has less than a minute to decide what to do. He’s too close to have time for his bow. He can either run and hope the magister misses any spell he fires, or try and catch him off guard.

The second isn’t much of an option, but it’s better than waiting.

The man’s steps are quiet on the dense sands, but Jinki can still place where he is when he strains his ear. Quietly as he can, he shifts around the large column to change his location from what the magister might expect.

When he finally hears him only feet away, then leaps up, keeping one arm over his face in hopes of guarding against any ice or fire flung his way.

He’s so close, close enough to see the ornamental pattern on the magister’s robes, and Jinki throws his dagger forward just as the man whips around to face him.

A quick flick of the magister’s staff sends it flying to the side. The mage jumps back, staff now at his side as he tries to conjure an offensive spell, and there’s the opening Jinki needed —

He unsheathes his other blade from his thigh and jumps forward. He’s nearly there, just close enough to slash the man’s throat with a swipe of his dagger, when his whole body suddenly freezes still.

It’s not ice, he knows — there’s no chill to it, and the pin-and-needle sensation of the spell in his veins is familiar. Too familiar, from nights in a bed not his own and parties away from the magister’s estate. Dread crawls up Jinki’s spine as it sinks in what’s been done to him.

His mind thrashes with the need to move. He wants to escape — needs to escape, because idea of another mage controlling his body and blood makes his stomach churn — but his limbs remain  useless, and the magister steps closer, entirely confident of his hold.

His mouth is unhindered by the spell, and he uses it to spit curses, clutching onto his rage to keep from descending into a blind panic as the mage approaches. “Retrahe, bastard!”

 _“Retrahe_?” The mage stops to eye him with curiosity. “You speak Tevene?” He reaches out, as if to touch Jinki’s _vallaslin_ , but stops his hand when Jinki snarls at it. “…And, apparently, you’ve gone savage.”

Jinki glares, meeting his eyes with the malice he’d never been allowed to show to the magister that owned him. “Dread Wolf take you, maleficar.”

“Yes, I’m sure your primitive gods will help you.” He rolls his eyes, plucks the dagger from Jinki’s fingers, and kicks it away before doing the same with the blades strapped to the rest of his body. Bile rises in Jinki’s throat as another blade is picked from its sheath at his thigh, and Jinki follows the last gleam of the silver blade against the stone with the weight of dread in his stomach.

“Now that you’re unarmed, we can talk.” The mage releases the spell that’d been holding him, and he falls to the ground and onto his knees. “I assume you’re the reason my other sacrifices have not arrived yet. Am I correct?”

Jinki clenches his fists and fixes his eyes on the ground, not wanting to let the man see the humiliation burning in his eyes. He needs to stay a distraction. He can hear fighting from the distant camp, though the magister’s human ears haven’t picked it up. Unarmed, he has little chance against anyone, let alone a magister, but if he could just get one of his knifes back —

He tries to reach towards the nearest one, but two sharp raps from the end of the magister’s blood-dipped staff against his shoulder stop his attempt. He grits his teeth to avoid making a sound. His cheek is splattered with blood, and his bone aches with the impact, but he’s not going to give any Tevinter bastard the satisfaction of hearing him suffer.

“Are you dumb as well as savage, _rattus_?” Another smack of the staff against him, and he can hear the magister’s voice rise in irritation. “Answer me, or be killed.”

Jinki’s snaps his eyes up to meet the magister’s gaze. “I’m not afraid of dying.”

The magister rolls his eyes. “Don’t play at being brave.”

With a flick of his fingers, blood magic takes Jinki’s body again, and his back is forced into the low arch of a bow.

“I’m certain you used to be a slave, from your accent, and I imagine reliving that would be worse for you than death.”

His heart races, and even the hold of the blood magic on his body can’t seem to stop his hands from shaking with fear. What did the magister mean by that?

“Are there more elves like you trying to stop my shipments? Or are you working with someone else? The Inquisition, maybe?”

Jinki remains silent. The interrogation is muted in his ears, drowned out by the creep of old memories into his senses and the dread of what might follow.

His vision spins when the magister hits him with the staff again, this time directly against his skull. He leaves the end against Jinki’s forehead and pushes, increasing the pressure until Jinki is forced to bend backwards. The sharp end of it digs into his skin harsh enough to pierce, and he squints against the pain, trying to ignore the trickle of blood he can feel running down his nose.

Suddenly, the magister pulls his staff back and frowns, turning his head in the direction of the Venatori camp. Battle cries and cheers echo loudly in the distance, and Jinki’s stomach swims with a mix of dread and relief. The sound of the fighting is finally loud enough to draw the magister’s attention.

He listens a moment longer before glaring down at Jinki. “So — they had you be a distraction for a two-pronged attack. You realize those only work when you have a chance of winning one of those battles, don’t you?” He snaps his fingers, and Jinki feels his body force itself to his feet before following after the magister towards the exit of the ruins. “You’ll be coming with, since you have information, and I’m guessing whatever allies you have might be stopped if I hold you hostage.”

Jinki tries to dig in his heels, or run ahead to at least save his dignity, but manages only to make himself stumble slightly over his feet. His eyes sting with the threat of tears, and he can’t even move his arms to wipe them away. He doesn’t want Jonghyun to see him like this, following behind a _shem_ bastard like a slave.

Jinki can’t turn his head, but he manages to look up through his lashes to see Taemin approaching them outside the ruins. His feet are bare, and he’s clad in only the thin linen tarp they had first found Seungwan in. He makes no move to hide himself as he approaches the magister — there’s a tray in his hands, laden with sweets and a single glass of wine. As they approach, he bows his head lower and lower until he’s the perfect picture of subservience when they meet at the end of the ruins..

The magister raises his hand, and Jinki halts behind him, unable to do anything but plead with his eyes for Taemin to run before the blood magic controlling him is extended to them both.

“ _Servus._ I didn’t ask for dinner to be brought to me,” he says. “What’re you doing here?”

“My apologies, dominus,” he says, in the mellowest Tevene Jinki’s ever heard from him. “One of the soldiers sent me here with this as an apology for any interference their trouble might have caused.”

“Trouble?”

Taemin nods. “Yes, dominus. There’s a fight in the cages between the slaves. Some are saying more of the Inquisition is here to free them, and the others are trying to keep them quiet.”

The Tevinter mage growls, irritated. “So that’s what that racket was? Have they ended the fight yet?”

Taemin cowers. The fear in his eyes looks real enough to make Jinki sick, as much as he knows it’s a ploy. “The guards are having trouble. Forgive me for saying this, but they’re…fairly drunk at the moment.”

“Of course.” His brow wrinkles in distaste. “I _told_ the supply man we shouldn’t pack ale, but he insisted it would hold longer than water would…”

A quiet step behind one of the columns Jinki’s on left distracts him from the magister’s rant, and his ear twitches towards the sound. The spell on Jinki has loosened enough for him to turn his head slightly, and in the shadows, he catches the gleam of Seungwan’s eyes. Behind her, he sees Jonghyun, looking pale and exhausted, but his hands are clenched around his staff.

He tries to hide his relief, in case the magister might turn to him. If she could take the magister by surprise, she could fell him in a single blow — they had a chance of winning.

With perfect timing, Taemin bows and gestures for the magister to walk ahead of him just as Seungwan positions herself at the nearest hiding point beside him.

The moment the magister’s back is in view, Seungwan throws herself towards him, both hands tight on the hilt her sword as she uses her momentum for a wild swing at his torso, but it’d been too slow. The sword stops, rendered useless by a barrier the magister had snapped into place at her first movement, but she continues undeterred — in a quick flash of movement, she lets go of the hilt to grab a dagger from her belt and bring it directly into the crystal of his staff.

The fragile jewel cracks, sending them all flying back in different directions across the sands.

Energy ripples out from the broken jewel. Goosebumps rise on Jinki’s arms as glowing waves of bright and sickly green magics flow out of the staff, and he looks around, letting out a breath of relief when he sees Seungwan and Taemin stumbling back onto their feet to search for their weapons. He looks to where Jonghyun had been waiting, only to find him on his knees and clutching his head in pain that seems to intensify each time the more of the green mist flows past him — as a mage, whatever energy had been contained within the staff must’ve hit him harder.

Finally released from the blood magic, Jinki crawls to his feet and heads for Jonghyun, one eye on the magister as he limps over to him. The barrier the magister had used to block Seungwan’s sword must have protected him him from the brunt of the explosion, because by the time Jinki reaches Jonghyun, the man is already raising himself back onto his hands and knees. With a snap of his fingers, the barrier that had surrounded him earlier is recast, and he grimaces as he rises to his feet.

Jinki swears. He’s still unarmed, and Seungwan has only just gotten her sword and is trying to stand.

The magister’s attention swivels around him, trying to pick a target as fire blooms in his hands.

His gaze settles on Jonghyun. Though his staff is still laying uselessly in the dirt, Jinki knows any Tevinter man would see an unknown mage as the primary threat, compared to three elves — and before he can think of a better option, he throws himself at Jonghyun to shove him back behind the column for cover.

Jinki has no hope of reaching safety himself, when his limbs are still recovering from the blood magic.

The fire hits him fast. He feels the heat of it before it even reaches him, and then the pain is instant — he distantly registers himself screaming as it  incinerates the leather of his armor and burns his flesh, engulfing his arm entirely until the spell ends and leaves a sharp scent in the air that rips at his nostrils.

Everything after that is a blur. He hears Taemin shout his name, and Seungwan shoot out a string of curses as she rushes forward again. This time, the magister is too weak to summon a full barrier, and she slips her dagger past the guard of the magister’s staff and into the flesh between his ribs. He watches through his blackening vision, half-expecting the mage to pull some evil magic to turn things in his favor, only to watch him collapse when Seungwan stabs him a second time, head hitting the sand and stone with the glassy and wide eyes of a dead animal.

“J-Jinki?”

He feels a tug on what’s left of his leather armor, and lets himself fall in the direction of the familiar voice. Warm hands grasp him by the shoulder, and he grunts in pain as he’s lowered onto his back. All that work to stop acting helpless, and now he really is.

Jonghyun looks down at him with tears in his eyes. He hears the approach of footsteps, and Taemin enters his vision, followed by Seungwan, who both pinch their noses when they approach.

Somehow, Jinki finds it in himself to speak. “He’s dead?”

Seungwan nods, and that’s enough for Jinki to let go of his fight to stay conscious in spite of the pain. He closes his eyes, letting himself slip into it, but Taemin’s voice still slips into his ears as he fades.

“Jonghyun, that fire didn’t completely close the wound — he’s still bleeding a lot, and with all that sand — if all of it gets infected, he might not make it.”

“I know, Taemin! Trust me, I’m well aware of that!” There’s a ring of panic in Jonghyun’s voice that jars Jinki more away. He wants to reach out and comfort Jonghyun — tries to, even, but he can’t seem to lift his arm more than an inch. A distant part of him knows it must be because some of his muscles and nerves were burnt away, which is likely why he only feels a bit of pain.

He hears Jonghyun inhale slowly, and the sound of his hand lifting his staff from the ground before his shirt is tugged open.

“I’m so sorry for this.”

Light fills the air around him, bright enough to be obvious even through his closed eyelids, and he hisses with discomfort as he feels his flesh and muscle pull at itself to stretch over what was lost.

His blood roars in his ears as his heart races, fast enough to make him feel like he’s floating, and he’s just present enough to realize he’s fainting and that someone is shouting above him.

The last thing he feels is the weight of Jonghyun’s body falling onto his.

***

Several hours after Seungwan had killed the magister, Jonghyun wakes to find himself alone in the last remaining tent of the Venatori camp.

The moment he steps outside, Taemin rushes from where he’d been hooking a canvas to a wagon to grab Jonghyun’s shoulder. “You sure you should be walking?”

Jonghyun brushes him off, only one thing on his mind. “I’m fine. Where’s Jinki?”

“I knew you’d ask that.” Taemin rolls his eyes, but smiles at him affectionately. “We already bandaged him up, since you were knocked out. He’s in one of the wagons.”

“He’s alright, though? How’s his arm look?”

“Pretty bad, obviously. I’m guessing it’ll take a few weeks to heal,” Taemin says. “But you did stop the bleeding, and there’s no dirt or anything in it, so I doubt it’ll get infected.”

Jonghyun sighs with relief. “Thank you. Can I see him?”

“Of course.” Taemin hooks an arm under his to support his weight. “We actually planned on you riding with the wagon in him, with everyone else who can’t walk for long.”

Jonghyun frowns — he’d rather not take a spot from any of the recently freed elves, considering nearly all of them were suffering from sunburns and blisters from traveling in the open — but decides better than to argue. His body still aches from over-extending his magic, and he’s already noticed that too much movement makes his stomach pitch with nausea. And at least being in one of the wagons would put him near Jinki.

Taemin stops them at a wagon with the canvas flap entirely shut. He lets Jonghyun lean his weight against the wheel as he begins to unthread the opening. “Jinki’s in here, with a few of the other wounded. Hope you don’t mind sharing the space?”

“Not at all. Hopefully I can help some of them, too, once I get my strength back.”

“That’s kind of you, really — just don’t pass out again, alright?”

Jonghyun huffs and lets Taemin help him step up into the wagon. He gives a small smile to the elves inside before turning to the flap to begin threading it closed again, only for Taemin to stop him with a hand on his wrist.

“I know you’re worried, since you two are still fighting and you just magicked him without asking — but I think you did the right thing.”

Jonghyun swallows. “You think so?”

“Yeah. He’d be an ass to give you shit about it, but knowing him, he might, so — take the thanks from me. I appreciate you saving him.” Taemin smiles through the small gap. “So don’t be too hurt if he’s rude — the rest of us know you did the right thing.”

“Thanks.”

When Taemin’s hand slips away, he finishes threading the flap closed and climbs over the baskets of healing supplies towards to Jinki, who had been tucked against the very front of the wagon. The elves give him wary looks, despite the fact he’d been the one to break open their cage and hand them the weapons to kill their captors, but it’s understandable, and they’re easy to forget when he sees Jinki’s sleeping face.

The wound that Jonghyun remembers above the bridge of his nose is covered by a hastily-applied bandage that hides nearly all the markings on his forehead, and the difference it makes to his appearance is disconcerting. Unable to help himself, he brushes back Jinki’s hair to reveal as many of his markings as he can, needing the familiar sight of the lines curving around the sides of his brow to assure himself that Jinki is alright.

Jinki’s brow furrows, and he flinches his hand back. His chest clenches when Jinki’s eyes flutter open.

He fully expects Jinki to glare at him, or ask where he is — he’d used magic on him, after all — but his first reaction to seeing Jonghyun is a small smile.

“Could I have some water?”

Jinki’s voice cracks after his question, and Jonghyun rushes to find where the pail had been stored in the wagon. After he gets Jinki ladleful of water, he nods, then his eyes slip closed again, and only the steady motion of his breathing keeps him from pressing a finger to his neck to check his pulse.

Once the wagon begins moving, the next few days pass in a daze. Taemin rides a day ahead of them with Seungwan, to let the Inquisition know they were coming — a whole caravan of Venatori-marked horses and wagons would hardly be received well on first sight — and returns with extra supplies and clothing for the freed slaves. He manages to earn the trust of a elves in the wagon with him what little energy he has to heal minor wounds and dress wounds, and in turn, they help him attend to Jinki’s burned arm with the instructions.

Both he and Jinki rest through most of the journey— Jonghyun, with his back resting against the side of a Tevinter wagon, and Jinki next to him, bandaged and tucked into the plushest bedroll pilfered from the Venatori camp — but they both seem to come in and out of sleep at opposite intervals, somehow always missing the opportunity to talk.

When they finally reach the fortress, Seungwan and Taemin show them to a room that apparently had been assigned to them.

“We let them know you were both recovering from killing that magister bastard, so they gave you a room all to yourselves,” Seungwan explains, and only a traitorous twitch of amusement from Taemin’s lips tell him there might have been more involved that decision. “So don’t worry about anything but rest, alright?”

Jinki hums a quiet acknowledgement — he’d been asleep when they’d pulled in past the fortress gates — and mumbles a thanks before turning to head for the single bed inside. Jonghyun makes sure to thank them both, then follows Jinki inside and shuts the door, adjusting the basket of bandages and salve under his arm before setting it on the bed.

The room is quiet as Jinki helps him unwrap the last bandages on his arm, quiet enough that Jonghyun has to bite his lip to keep from making a sound when he sees the remains of the burns on Jinki’s arm. Though he’d managed to heal the worst of the damage, and save it from becoming immobile, his skin is still littered with blisters and leathery patches that mark his otherwise golden skin with patches of red and white.

He applies the salve in silence, only murmuring an occasional apology whenever Jinki winces. Despite their proximity in the wagon, it’s the first time they’ve been entirely alone in days, and Jonghyun finds himself unsure of what to say. He hasn’t known what to say since Jinki started to reach out to him — it still seemed so contrary to the Jinki he knew — and he settles for slipping wordlessly beneath the covers after he’s finished redressing the wounds.

After a moment of checking his bandages, Jinki joins him, smoothing out the small pillow he’d been given until it lays flat. Jonghyun waits until he hears Jinki’s breathing slows to close his eyes, but reopens them when he feels a hand brush his back.

“Do you have anything for the pain?” Jinki’s voice is quiet, and his fingers shift anxiously up to his shoulders. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get back to sleep like this.”

The blankets cling to Jonghyun as he untangles himself to turn towards Jinki. “The salve should have numbed the pain somewhat, but I think I can go get a potion from the keep’s apothecary — Taemin mentioned that it stays unlocked all night. Or I might be able to make something new, if they don’t mind me using their equipment…” He slips out of bed and over to the small pack that had been with him through their entire journey, unfastening it hastily “I have some elfroot in my bag you can chew on, too, if you prefer—”

“None of that has helped so far,” Jinki says. His hands shift in his lap as he looks away, refusing to meet Jonghyun’s eyes. “Can you not use magic for that?”

Jonghyun stares at him.

“I…could, yes. It would help.” Jonghyun swallows. “I could also use it to make you drowsy, if you’re having trouble sleeping.”

Jinki gives him a strained smile and begins to unwrap his arm. “I’m tired enough that all I need is the edge off the pain.”

When the glow of his hands is close enough to abate the shadows in the grooves of Jinki’s newly-forming scars, Jonghyun stops, hesitant as the significance of what he’s doing sinks in.

He knows deeply how much Jinki preferred to leave things unspoken. But this is something he can’t afford to make a mistake with.

The light from his hands dims, but he keeps them close to the bareness of Jinki’s shoulder. “…You’re sure about this? Me using magic on you?”

“Yes.” Jinki meets Jonghyun’s eyes with a certainty that shakes him. “It’s a part of you.”

Jonghyun’s breath catches. When he searches Jinki’s face for a sign of hesitance, for some hint that this had all been bravado brought about by a desperation to avoid pain, all he finds is a familiar and determined clench of Jinki’s jaw that dares Jonghyun to question him again.

He doesn’t know how to react to that. He’d expected a reluctant grimace — not this assurance that he would trust Jonghyun with his greatest fears _._

Jonghyun sets his arm over Jinki’s shoulder, and Jinki places his hand atop it, a warmth in his eyes that makes the flame of the torches burning outside the room’s window seem weak. His heart shifts in his chest, opening a little more again as he leans towards Jinki.

There’s no need for words, though Jonghyun offers them as a distraction as he reaches inside of himself to find his magic again. He speaks of the herbs they grew together and the animals they hunted as he sinks relief into Jinki’s shoulder, not stopping until a relieved sigh escapes Jinki’s lips. After helping him lay back on the mattress, Jonghyun piles the covers around them both to protect them from the desert-night cold, then puts out the candle with a short press of his index finger to his thumb and a whisper of magic.

He can’t curve against Jinki’s back, not with the burn fresh enough to sting at every touch, but he seeks out his hand and earns him a soft stroke of calloused fingers over his palm.

“Thank you, _ma vhenan._ ”

Jonghyun smiles into his pillow, heart skipping just as it had that first night Jinki had surprised him with a kiss.


	8. Epilogue

The spot where their skin is together is tacky with sweat, but Jinki doesn’t want to move. And even if he wanted to, he isn’t sure if he could — his heart is still racing, and even though Jonghyun had climbed off of him minutes ago, thin waves of pleasure are still echoing through all his limbs.

Jonghyun seems to be experiencing the same aftermath, if the content sighs against his chest are anything to go by. His fingers twitch against Jinki’s stomach occasionally, but his hands remain still, careful not to brush where they’d be unwanted even when they’re both bare.

Soft hair brushes against jawline as Jonghyun lifts his head away from his neck to speak. “Have you thought about what you want to do after you’re fully healed?”

Jinki lets the question hang for a moment before answering, building up his nerve. “I think I’d like to leave the Inquisition.”

“From what Taemin’s said, the Inquisition’s nearly wrapped up their conflict with Tevinter, so there’s not really a reason to stick around.” Jonghyun hums. “I’m alright with leaving as well. Are you getting as sick of the Maker worship as I am?”

“That, and the Orlesians,” he admits, unable to avoid curling his lip in distaste. “The elves are fine, but the human nobles that pass through…”

“Insufferable, I agree.” Jonghyun laughs softly. “Would you like to return to the Free Marches, then? I doubt anyone’s taken over the cabin since we’ve been gone.”

Jinki swallows. An instinctive part of him wants to go silent, and say nothing more, but he knows better than to hide his thoughts now.

“I don’t want to return there. I know you might wish to, but I…” he trails off and forces himself to take a deep breath. “I’m not sure I can separate that forest from memories of my clan. Not that I want to forget them, but living there would be too much of a reminder.”

Jonghyun’s palm presses lightly against his chest as a quiet apology. “That’s alright. I’d like to pick up some of my things, but we can settle down elsewhere.”

Jinki pauses. “Settle down?”

“I—” Jonghyun flushes. “I assumed that’s what you’d want, since you don’t seem to like travel like Taemin does. And if we leave the Inquisition, we won’t really have a reason to wander.”

Jinki’s fingers run through through Jonghyun’s hair as he smiles. “I think I would like that. Where would you want to go?”

“Wherever you like. I can grow enough food for the both of us, I think, as long as we have some land. Taemin mentioned that we might receive a reward for our service, maybe we can—”

With perfect timing, the door flings open. When the door hits the wall, Jinki flinches at the noise, and Taemin stares at them with wide eyes. “Am I, uh — interrupting something?”

“You should’ve knocked!” Jonghyun shouts, scrambling for the sheets. He throws them over Jinki first, then pulls a corner to cover his hips and glares. “What did you want?”

“Sorry, I was too excited to tell you about the money we’re getting to remember my manners.” He grins, not apologetic in the least. “I was coming to get you two so we could talk about how to split it. I’ll let you get decent, and we’ll meet in the mess hall?”

Jonghyun barely has time to grit out an agreement before the door snaps shut behind Taemin. He huffs in frustration, then turns to Jinki, a familiar concern in his eye. “You alright?”

Jinki nods. He knows what Jonghyun is asking — if he needs time to recover after being startled, or if being caught in the aftermath of sex had bothered him — but neither had gotten under his skin enough to draw up any past image.

“I’m up for it. I don’t exactly want to be out there with the soldiers, but being stuck in this room is making me restless.”

“Alright.” Jonghyun gives him a knowing smile and slips away to clean himself off with a rag from the small basin of water in the room. He does the same for Jinki before throwing his robes back on, then comes back with a tunic and breeches to help dress him.

Jinki grimaces and holds out his arms. Though Jonghyun had gotten him a shirt that buttoned in the front, so he wouldn’t have to lift his arms, his burned one is still stiff enough that without help, even the loose fabric of the shirt’s sleeves would tug on his dressings.

Jonghyun watches his face carefully as he works, tongue between his teeth as he works the fabric over Jinki’s elbow. “You look more pained than the last time I dressed you. You didn’t hurt your arm from what we did, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” Jinki says. “It’s just because I skipped the tea at noon. The herbs you put in it usually help.”

“Ah. Right.” Jonghyun flushes — likely remembering how Jinki had pulled his hands away from the teapot and onto his chest to bring him on the bed — and clears his throat. “Well, let me know if you want me to make some.”

“I will.” Jinki pushes his hair back and presses a kiss to his forehead, then pulls back and nods to the door. “We should go meet Taemin.”

Jonghyun nods, face still red, and hurries to open it for him. Jinki follows him outside and looks around, trying to orient himself. He’d barely left the room they’d been given since they arrived, and the fortress still feels like a maze to him despite spending nearly two weeks inside.

Thankfully, Jonghyun seems to know the place already. He offers Jinki a small smile and points in the direction they’ll be heading, and only starts walking once he’s certain Jinki is by his side.

The hallway to the mess hall is winding, and littered with human Inquisition soldiers and officers that eye them oddly as they walk by. As always, there’s whispers about him being Dalish, but this time, the hushed tones sound more appreciative than anything else. Jinki grimaces when a young soldier gapes at him openly, eyes fixed on his _vallaslin_. He doesn’t like the attention, but it’s better than being called a knife-ear.

As he expected, Taemin is seated amongst a mixed group of elves and humans with Seungwan nearby.

Jonghyun waves to get their attention, then points at an empty table in the corner.

Seungwan stands first, hurrying over to join them with a smile, but her eyes linger on Jinki’s arm before meeting his own. “How are you doing? I was worried you’re still feeling too faint to be out of bed for long.”

“I’m feeling much better,” he says, taking a seat across from her. “Jonghyun’s been helping me recover.”

“Yes, I think Jonghyun’s been helping him tons.” Taemin joins them with a slow, exaggerated wink, as if the suggestive drawl of his tone isn’t enough. “Jinki’s well enough to get about now. He’s just been busy, you know — ‘ _resting.’”_

Jinki rolls his eyes. “Jonghyun and I share a room now. You should have known to knock.”

Seungwan snickers, and Taemin laughs with her. “Probably. I’ll be more careful next time – Jonghyun seemed pretty bothered by me barging in.”

“I wasn’t mad or anything – just flustered.” He huffs and crosses his arms. “So what’d you want to discuss about this reward? I’m still not sure why we’re getting anything, honestly.”

“I don’t know the politics of it, but I know we’re getting quite a bit more money than I thought we would.” Taemin shrugs. “Turns out it’s not just the Inquisition rewarding us for our service — there’s something about Orlais paying us for kicking the Tevinter bastards out, and demanding reparations from the magister’s family that was involved with it all. And as you can guess, they had deep pockets.”

“How deep?”

“Ten thousand gold deep.”

Jonghyun blinks at Taemin, eyes wide with disbelief. “Maker, are you serious?”

Taemin nods.

“That’s…a lot of money. So much money. And it’s all going to us?”

“Basically, yeah.” Taemin shrugs. “I don’t have much use for it, though. You know me — it would all go to liquor, gambling, and tithing, so it’s not a necessity. And since I’m sticking with the Inquisition, I won’t exactly need money for room and board. All that’s provided with service.”

Seungwan sets down her glass of ale to speak. “I don’t want much of it, either. Just enough to buy myself a good set of gear and armor. I’d rather earn my own way from scratch – I worry the money would tempt me into idleness.”

Taemin laughs. “There’s nothing wrong with relaxing, you know.”

“If I want to make a living as a mercenary, I can’t afford to get out of shape.” She shrugs.

Taemin taps the table in front of Jonghyun. “How about you, then? You could use the money for non-tattered robes.”

“They still serve their function well enough.” Jonghyun huffs and dusts off his knees. “But I can’t imagine what I’d do with that money. It’s just so much…”

Jinki watches Jonghyun trail off, then clears his throat to speak. “Actually, I think we could use it. Jonghyun and I have been talking about buying some land.”

Jonghyun blinks. “We have?”

Jinki chews his lip, conscious of how everyone’s eyes have shifted to him. “We did talk about settling down…”

“ _Settling down_?” Taemin repeats. He leans in across the table, grinning wide. “Really? Are you going to get hitched?”

“Mages can’t,” Jonghyun deflects quickly, though his cheeks turn red at the suggestion. “We were just talking about finding a place to live together. Preferably somewhere quiet, I think?” He checks for confirmation with Jinki, who nods, before continuing. “I know we were only with the Inquisition for a short while, but…I think we’ve had enough adventuring.”

“Well, I’m all for giving you two most of the money if you’ll use it to build a little lover’s nest.” Taemin looks between them with a fond smile. “What do you think, Seungwan?”

“I think it would be nice to know there’s a place I could find my friends, when I want a break from traveling.” Seungwan meets Jinki’s eyes, and again, something about the expression behind them reminds him of Hyoyeon enough to make his chest tighten. “Assuming you will make it your home.”

Jinki looks down to swallow the lump in his throat. Under the table, Jonghyun’s hand is near his on the bench, and he reaches out for it to calm his heart.

That life was gone, but he could have a new one.

Jonghyun’s hand turns under his until their fingers can lace together. Jinki leans his shoulder against Jonghyun to acknowledge the comforting gesture, and lifts his head with a smile. “I think a home would be nice.”

Jonghyun hand tightens briefly, and there’s a light in his eyes when he catches Jinki’s gaze. “I’d like that too.”


End file.
